Read A Rogue by Any Other Name Online
Authors: Sarah MacLean
He wrapped a second arm around her, holding her tight against him as the thought echoed through his head.
For now, she was his
.
“It appears that your adventure was a success.”
She lifted her head, setting her chin on her stacked palms and looking at him, her blue eyes glittering with teasing. “I am looking forward to the next one.”
His hand slipped down one thigh, toying with the top of her silk stocking. “Why do I hesitate to ask?”
“I want to play hazard.”
He imagined Penelope kissing the ivory dice before tossing them across the plush green baize in one of the hazard rooms downstairs. “You know hazard is a game you cannot win.”
She smiled. “They say that about roulette, too.”
He matched her smile. “So they do. You were simply lucky.”
“Number twenty-three.”
“Unfortunately, the dice only add up to twelve.”
She gave a little shrug, his coat slipping off her pale, perfect shoulder. “I shall persevere.”
He leaned his head forward to place a kiss on her bare skin. “We’ll see about hazard. I’m still recovering from tonight’s adventure, vixen.”
And tomorrow, you shall remember all the reasons you don’t want me near you.
She closed her eyes and sighed with remembered pleasure, and the sound had him shifting beneath her to hide his thickening desire.
He wanted her again.
But he would control himself.
They should rise.
He could not bring himself to move.
“Michael?” When her eyes opened again, they were blue as the summer sky. A man could lose himself forever in those eyes. “Where did you go?”
“Where did I go when?”
“After you . . . lost everything.”
A shiver of distaste ran through him. He did not want to answer her. Did not want to give her more of a reason to regret their marriage.
“I didn’t go anywhere. I stayed in London.”
“What happened?”
What a question. So much had happened. So much had changed. So much he did not want her to know. So much he did not want her to be a part of.
So much he wished he had not been a part of.
He took a deep breath, his hands to her waist to move her, to rise. “You don’t want to hear about that.”
She pushed herself up over him, hands flat on his chest, staying his movement. “I
do
want to hear about it.” She stared down at him, refusing to let him up.
To let him retreat.
He lay back, resigned. “How much do you know?”
“I know you lost it all in a game of chance.”
She was so close, her blue eyes so intent, and regret rocketed through him. He hated that she knew his mistakes. His shame. He wished he could be someone else for her. Someone new.
Someone worthy of her.
But perhaps if he told her the tale, if she knew everything, it would keep her from coming too close. Perhaps it would keep him from caring too much.
Too late.
He steeled himself from the thought, barely a whisper. “It was
vingt-et-un.
”
She did not look away. “You were young.”
“Twenty-one. Old enough to wager everything I owned.”
“You were young,” she repeated emphatically.
He did not argue. “I gambled everything. Everything that was not entailed. Everything that wasn’t pinned down by generations. Like a fool.” He waited for her to agree. When she didn’t, he pressed on. “Langford pushed me to wager more and more, goading me, taunting until everything I had was on the table, and I was certain I would win.”
She shook her head at that. “How could you know?”
“I couldn’t, could I? But I’d been hot for the evening—I’d won hand after hand. When you are on a winning streak it’s . . . euphoric. There comes a point when everything shifts, and reason flees, and you think it is impossible to lose.” The words were coming freely now, along with the memories that he’d long kept locked away. “Gaming is a sickness for some. And I had it. The cure was winning. That night, I could not stop winning. Until I stopped winning and lost everything.” She was watching him, her attention rapt. “He led me into temptation, convincing me to wager more and more . . .”
“Why you?” There was a furrow between her brows and anger in her voice, and Michael reached up to smooth the wrinkled skin there. “You were so young!”
“So quick to defend me without all the information.” His touch followed the slope of her nose. “He’d built it. The lands, the money, everything. My father was a good man, but when he died, the estate was not as successful as it could be. But, there was enough there for Langford to work with, to make it prosperous, and he did. By the time I inherited, the marquessate was worth more than his own lands; he didn’t want to relinquish it.”
“Greed is a sin.”
As is vengeance.
He paused, thinking back on the long-ago game that he’d relived hundreds of times, thousands. “He told me I’d thank him, eventually, for taking everything from me,” he said, unable to keep the derision from his tone.
She was quiet for a long moment, her blue eyes serious. “Perhaps he was right.”
“He wasn’t.” Not a day went by that Michael did not resent the very air that Langford breathed.
“Well, perhaps gratitude is a bit much. But think of how you rose in spite of his obstacles. Think of how you faced his odds. Conquered them.”
There was an urgent breathlessness in Penelope’s voice, and Michael at once adored and loathed it. “I told you once not to make me a hero, Penelope. Nothing I did . . . nothing I am . . . is heroic.”
She shook her head. “You’re wrong. You are so much more than you think.”
He thought of the papers in his coat pocket, of the plan he’d set in motion that morning. Of the vengeance for which he had waited all these years. She would see soon enough that he was no hero.
“I wish that were true.”
For you.
The thought haunted him.
She leaned closer, her gaze serious and unwavering. “Don’t you see, Michael? Don’t you see how much more you are now than you would have been? How much stronger? How much more powerful? If not for that moment, for the way it changed you, the way it changed your life . . . you would not be here.” Her voice dropped to a whisper. “And neither would I.”
He tightened his arms around her. “Well, that is something.”
They lay there for a long while, lost in their thoughts, before Penelope changed the subject. “And after the game? What happened then?”
Michael looked up to the ceiling, recalling. “He left me a guinea.”
She lifted her head. “Your marker.”
His intelligent wife.
“I wouldn’t spend it. I wouldn’t take anything from him. Not until I could take
everything
from him.”
She was watching him carefully. “Revenge.”
“I had nothing but the clothes on my back and a handful of coins in my pocket—Temple found me. We’d been friends at school, and he was fighting anyone who would pay him for a match. On nights when he wasn’t boxing, we were running dice games on the street in the Bar.”
Her brow furrowed. “Wasn’t that dangerous?”
He saw the worry in her eyes, and a part of him ached for her softness, for her sweetness. Her presence there, in his arms as he told this tale, was a benediction. It was as though she could, with her worry and her care, save him.
Except, he was long past saving, and she didn’t deserve this life, filled with sin and vice. She deserved so much more. So much better. He shrugged one shoulder. “We learned quickly when to fight and when to run.”
One of her hands came up to his face, and she touched his healing lip gently. “You still fight.”
He smiled, his voice turning dark. “And it has been a long time since I have run.”
Her gaze flickered to the glass window, where the night was growing long, and the candles in the chandeliers beyond were fading. “And The Angel?”
He lifted a hand and took a long lock of blond hair in hand, threading it through his fingers, loving the way it clung to him. “Four and a half years later, Temple and I had perfected our business . . . our dice games moved from place to place depending upon the players, and one night, we had twenty or thirty men, all betting on the outcome. I had a stack of money in hand, and we knew that it was a matter of time before we would have to end the game or risk being robbed.” He released her hair and rubbed his thumb across her cheek. “I was never good at knowing when to stop. I always wanted one more game, one more roll of the dice.”
“You wagered on the games?”
He met her gaze, wanting her to hear the words. The promise in them. “I haven’t placed a bet in nine years.”
Understanding flared in her gaze. Pride, too. “Not since you lost to Langford.”
“It doesn’t change the way the tables call to me. Doesn’t make the dice less tempting. And when the roulette wheel spins . . . I always make a guess at where it will stop.”
“But you never wager.”
“No. But I love to watch others do it. That night, Temple said it several times—that we should leave. That the game was getting cold, but I could have gone another hour, another two, and I kept putting him off. One more roll of the dice. One more round of bets. One more main.” He was lost to the memory. “They came out of nowhere, and we should be grateful that they had clubs and not pistols. The men rolling the ivories ran at the first hint of trouble, but they would have been fine even if they’d stayed.”
“They wanted you.” Penelope’s words were a whisper.
He nodded. “They wanted our take. A thousand pounds. Maybe more.”
More than anyone should have on a street in Temple Bar.
“We fought as well as we could, but it was two on six . . . felt like nine.” He laughed, the sound barely there. “Nineteen, more like.”
She was not amused. “You should have given them the money. It wasn’t worth your life.”
“My clever wife. If only you’d been there.” Her face had gone white. Michael brought her mouth down to his for a quick kiss. “I’m here. Alive and well, unfortunately for you.”
She shook her head, her urgency doing strange things to his gut. “Do not even jest. What happened?”
“I thought we were done for when a carriage careened in from God knows where, and a battalion of men Temple’s size and larger exited. They joined our side, vanquished the foes, and when the scoundrels had run off, tails tucked between their legs, Temple and I were tossed into the carriage to meet our savior.”
She was ahead of the tale. “Chase.”
“The owner of The Fallen Angel.”
“What did he want?”
“Business partners. Someone to run the games. Someone to handle security. Men who understood both the glitter and the vulgarity of the aristocracy.”
She let out a long breath. “He saved your life.”
Michael was lost in the memory of that first meeting, when he’d realized he might have a chance to regain everything he’d lost. “Indeed.”
She leaned up and kissed him on his swollen lip, her tongue coming out to lick the bruise there. “He is wrong.”
His attention snapped back to her. “Chase?”
She nodded her head. “He thinks he owes me a debt.”
“So it seems.”
“It is I who owe him one. He saved you. For me.”
She kissed him again, and he caught his breath, telling himself it was in response to the caress, when it was her words that threatened his strength. His hands came up to burrow into her hair as he tasted her gratitude, her relief, and something else he could not place . . . a wonderful temptation.
Something he was certain he did not deserve.
He fisted one hand in her hair and pulled back from the kiss, wishing, desperately, that he could continue it. But he couldn’t allow her—couldn’t allow himself—another moment without reminding her of precisely who he was . . . what he was. “I lost everything, Penelope.
Everything.
Land, money, the contents of my homes . . .
of my father’s homes.
I lost everything that reminded me of them.” There was a long silence. Then, softly, “I lost you.”
She tilted her head, fixing him with her gaze. “You’ve rebuilt it. Doubled it. More.”
He shook his head. “Not the most important part.”
She stilled, as though she’d forgotten his plans. Their future. “Your revenge.”
“No. The respect. The place in society. The things that I should have been able to give my wife. The things I should have been able to give you.”
“Michael—” He heard the censure in her tone, ignored it.
“You are not listening. I am not the man for you. I’ve never been that man. You deserve someone who has never made the mistakes I’ve made. Someone who can cloak you in titles and respectability and decency and more than a little perfection.” He paused, loathing the way she stiffened in his arms at the words, resisting their truth. He forced her to look into his eyes, forced himself to say the rest. “I wish I were that man, Sixpence. But I’m not. Don’t you see? I have none of those things. I have nothing deserving of you. Nothing that will keep you happy.”
And Dear Lord, I want you to be happy. I want to make you happy.
“Why would you think that?” she asked. “You have so much . . . so much more than I would ever need.”
Not enough.
He’d lost more than he could ever regain.
He could have a hundred houses, twenty times as much money, all the riches he could amass, and it would never be enough. Because it would never erase his past, his recklessness, his failure.
It would never make him the man she deserved.
“If I hadn’t forced you into marrying me—” he started, and she cut him off.
“You didn’t force me into doing anything. I chose you.”
She couldn’t believe that.
He shook his head.
“You really don’t see it, do you? How remarkable you are.” He looked away at the words. At the lie in them. “No. Look at me.” The words were firm, and he couldn’t help but heed them, her eyes so blue. So honest. “You think somehow you lost all respectability when you lost your fortune. But what was that fortune but money and land cobbled together by generations of other men? It was
their
accomplishment.
Their
honor. Not yours. You—” He heard the reverence in the word. Saw the truth of her feelings in her eyes. “—you have built your own future. You’ve made yourself a man.”