One Night Is Never Enough (6 page)

“No.”

She had never been so near to a man who set her on edge. She had never
had
a man set her on edge. And she didn’t find the feeling particularly pleasant. Her breath was harsh and odd in her chest. Frozen without the cold. Her hands were trembling, and she was just thankful that she wasn’t holding a glass or some other piece that might give her away.

“No?” One long finger slowly lifted the middle of her veil to form a triangle of cloth. He was even more golden when unobstructed from view. His eyes sought the pulse at her throat—just as they had done in the ribbon shop—and his lips slowly curved. “Folly indeed, but worth it in the end, I think.”

“Merrick.”

Her father’s voice was crisp. But the heat in the eyes of the man in front of her, the increase in the curve of his lips, kept her attention.

Then the single, uttered word registered.

Panic initiated and spread in all directions. No, it wasn’t possible. But she could hear the footfalls behind her. The men drawing alongside her again.

Her heart stopped for a second time.

“Merrick, I didn’t see you come up.”

Having his identity confirmed just made the halt lengthen. One absent beat, then two. She didn’t know if the organ would restart.

She watched the beautiful face of the man, who continued to lazily assess her, to drink in her reaction, all dark amusement that she was suddenly putting the pieces together, before he glanced away, dropping his finger and her veil, to answer her father.

He, standing with the flush hand, and she, carrying the discards.

“Chatsworth.”

“If I could have a moment to speak with you.”

Roman Merrick—good God, she had never heard or kept the knowledge of the Merrick brothers’ first names, or else she would have put it together sooner—smiled charmingly. “Surely.”

Her father motioned to the man in a deferential manner—and in a direction
away
from her.

Roman’s eyebrows lifted. “Don’t you think the lady should be able to have a say in something that concerns her?” The words were delivered in a charming and innocent manner, but there was something entirely false about the simplicity of the statement.

Downing strode into her periphery and flipped open his pocket watch, obviously irritated. “Something that was stated last night, I believe.” His eyes softened slightly when they focused upon her, her face hidden from view once more, but turned hard when he looked back to the men.

“Lovely Miss Chatsworth seems hardly knowledgeable about what occurred.” Roman hummed. “But strangely resigned to what will happen.” His eyes were hot on her, and she felt her body traitorously respond. What was wrong with her? Had her own eyes not told her enough about this man that she should respond only with coldness? Was this some sort of internal rebellion against the pressure she had been under? She gripped her skirt in both hands, trying to keep from trembling.

Something snapped shut, the sound like a shot in the suddenly silent hallway. “Merrick, a moment.” Downing strode down the hall, obviously expecting the blond man to follow the strict command.

Roman shot her a slow grin before turning and following.

Charlotte swallowed, trying not to follow their progress with her eyes, trying to sort herself out and reinforce her battlements. To think about what might happen if Roman Merrick did claim her tonight. Would her face be scarred in the morning? Would other parts of her? A comforting lick of terror rushed through her. Fear she could deal with, for pride answered to fear.

She didn’t know what answered to desire.

Something inside her kept trying to reason that Roman Merrick could have hurt her before but hadn’t. Irrational feelings and rational thoughts collided, bleeding into one another. She tamped down all thoughts on the matter.

Her father took a few steps toward the two men, then stopped, seeming to waver on the choice. It was hard to say what Downing and Merrick were discussing. The walls seemed to constrict toward them, tightness in every line, sucking in the surroundings.

Trant looked at her, then at Roman Merrick, something steely in his eyes. “Have you met before?”

“No.” It wasn’t hard to inject a clip to her voice. She hadn’t truly met him, after all. And she didn’t wish to speak of the situation with Trant, whom she didn’t trust.

“I will ruin him.” He looked back at the man, his eyes dark. “For you.”

“I hardly think that will fix the situation I currently find myself in, Mr. Trant.” And she thought the part about the ruination being for her was more of an afterthought to the statement.

“It is an outrage. Let me fix it for you.” He took her gloved hand in his, steering her a little ways away. His hands were warm, but not scorching like Roman Merrick’s. And though the touch also made her uncomfortable, the feelings surrounding the discomfort were not the same. “No matter what happens tonight. I will still find you a desirable match.”

She smiled, a hard, brittle smile he couldn’t see, before smoothly removing her hand in a way to which he could not take offense. For even though she didn’t know the details of the bet—yet—she had a feeling that Trant was not inculpable. “That is kind of you.”

“Say that you will—”

She cut him off. “Mr. Trant, I hardly think this is the time to discuss such matters.”

“There will be no time more opportune.”

“Father says this
exchange
might not even take place.”

“But if it does, you should have a plan in place. I would hate to have to harm Merrick.”

Something alerted her that someone stood behind them. Outside in the alley, the knife would already be sticking from her ribs. This was not her world, and she couldn’t pretend that she was in any way equal to fooling it.

The tingling of her skin told her who stood there. She could feel the heat of
him
before he spoke. “I wouldn’t have such trouble in return.”

The words were silky and dark. Promising. The hair on the back of her neck stood on end. She turned to see Roman Merrick standing there, eyes disturbingly lazy upon Trant. Downing was saying something to her father a few paces behind, arguing with him in low tones that she couldn’t pay attention to, too caught by the man in front of her.

Trant shifted. “It was a foolish wager, Merrick.”

“It was. And yet here we are.” His eyes didn’t warm one bit. Fathomless pools of blue ice. Though there was that idleness to them, as if he didn’t find Trant much of a threat. And looking between them, at the lethality that surrounded the blond man, she’d have to agree. Trant was fit, and he liked to boast of his boxing prowess, but Merrick looked like he didn’t follow the rules of any sort of gentlemanly match.

More likely he would incapacitate the person while they were bowing to start, then
lazily
stride away before the person hit the floor.

“You should concede it.” Trant’s words were fainter than usual. “Force Chatsworth to pay the amount equal to my wager.”

“Should I?” Merrick asked,
idly,
a thin layer of smooth liquid flowing over jagged rocks. He moved smoothly around them, putting the empty corridor at his back, and everyone in his view, forcing Trant to twist awkwardly. “What say
you,
Miss Chatsworth?”

She swallowed, turning as if her chest were connected to his and, like a marionette on strings, she had to shift when he did. She looked up to see him extending a hand to her. The same strong hand that had beaten a man a few days before.

For some indefinable reason, her hand automatically twitched toward his.

“Outrageous.” Trant was a good-looking man though she could imagine the mottled red assuredly spilling over his flesh would not aid his coloring. But she couldn’t look away from the hand extended to her in order to see. She curled her own fingers together to keep them at her side. “Offensive.” She could almost imagine Trant’s words contained a sudden hint of panic underlying the anger, but with her own hands trembling and her eyes locked, she wasn’t sure she was a good judge of emotion at the moment.

“Is that so, Mr. Trant?” There was just the slightest twist on
Mr.
Belied by a charming laugh. The menace was suddenly gone again, mercurially replaced with the rogue instead. “You don’t believe the lady should be able to voice her own complaint?”

“Of course she should. Miss Chatsworth, tell him you will not follow through with this outrage.”

Roman Merrick laughed. “Is that what you would have said should you have won the hand and
your own bet,
Mr. Trant? I had the distinct impression that you would have claimed the winnings yourself should you have won. Held Chatsworth to his
honor,
and thus his family’s in turn.”

Trant didn’t respond. Charlotte thought that wise, as nothing he could say would do him much good. She felt the curl of embittered anger but tried to tamp it down under her swirling emotions. What good did it do to be angered over another man’s lying to her? Or perhaps not lying to her in the pure sense but simply leaving out details while trying to dictate her fate.

And it wasn’t
surprising.
Trant wanted to further his own plans. What difference did her opinion matter? Not a whit. She was the commodity. If he had won, any rumors of a night between them would be squelched by their certain marriage.

She squeezed her fingers together to stop the digits from shaking as they tried to lift toward, and twitch away from, the extended hand—the hand that came from a totally different sort of danger.

His
motive,
his
participation, was not quite as easy to discern. She broke her gaze from the offered hand and looked up.

“I
know
you would have,” Roman Merrick said silkily to Trant, still smiling, still dripping charm. His eyes caressed her veil as they slid to look at her father. But as they slipped over her, something in his posture changed. Something almost infinitesimal. “I applaud your initiative though, Trant, in forcing Chatsworth’s hand when he was—and is—so weak.”

“Now see here—” her father said, pride overcoming fear.

“You dare?” Trant’s voice was deadly.

“I do dare,” Merrick answered Trant, smiling, charismatic amongst enemy combatants. “Getting twisted around in your recollections, aren’t you? And Chatsworth too? Selling his daughter for a few pounds?”

“I can do as I please,” her father said, bristling. “I take no judgment from
you
.”

Merrick’s eyes traveled over her again,
stroking.
“You should look to whom you take judgment from. You do not show enough care of your possessions. Perhaps they should be removed.”

His hand was still extended to her, the gesture somehow not awkward. “I promise to take good care of you, Miss Chatsworth,” he said to her, silk and gravel in the words.

His eyes met hers somehow, piercing her veil, glittering in anticipation over the carnage the words would provoke. But there was a depth, a certainty underlying his words, that tightened something in her belly.

“I will
destroy
you. Take
everything
you have,” Trant hissed at him, fury and some strange panic overriding his initial caution toward the man.

Cacophony. Voices rose, collided, melded, and battled.

She looked away from the man in front of her, whose motives she couldn’t begin to discern, and at the men surrounding her. Trant and her father were yelling at the man in front of her and each other, Downing was speaking coldly about deals and choices, and Roman Merrick was fending every parry as if it were all a game he had orchestrated.

All speaking over her, dogs circling a bone they didn’t really care about—other than that it was a bone the others might want. The tickling ivories of a glossy fillet. She had been little else in her adult life.

Scrape the luster . . . destroy the patina . . . remove the bone . . .

Her mouth pulled into a shape that she would have said was grim but probably looked much more horrifying and ugly beneath the dark cloth. It felt ugly on her face, in her heart. Brittle.

“And your wager? Your
honor
?”

Her father’s honor. Perpetually left to her to satisfy. And he, speaking over her head as if she had no choice in the matter. No choice, though she would be the one to gratify, fulfill, and meet his obligations and the results of his greed. She always would.

Scrape the luster . . . destroy the patina . . . own your actions . . .

“My honor?” Her father’s voice shook. “You dare? You inferior rif—” His voice stopped, choked, as terror caught up, though the statement still hung.

“I prefer
modest.
Modest
riffraff. As long as you don’t lump me in with Trant as
upstart
riffraff.” Roman shuddered theatrically. Mocking, mocking, mocking. Taunting. Fingers reaching toward the glossy fillet. His words to her still hanging in the air with his fingers.