“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.”
A lovely sentiment, romantic, but wrong. “You mean a man who stole his wife from the dead of night, forced her to marry him, used her for land and vengeance and then . . . tonight . . . stripped her bare in London’s most legendary gaming hell?” He heard the disdain in his tone, and he looked away, toward the blackness that shrouded the high ceiling of the room, feeling like he belonged in the gutter. He wanted her dressed and far from him. “God. I swore I would never dishonor you again. I’m so sorry, Penelope.”
She refused to be cowed. Placing one hand on his chin, she forced him to meet her gaze once more. “Don’t make it sound filthy. I wanted it. I enjoyed it. I am not a child to be coddled. I married you to live, and this . . . you . . . all of it is living.” She paused and smiled, bright and beautiful, and the pleasure and regret that single smile wrought was a physical blow. “There was not a moment tonight during which I felt dishonored or misused. Indeed, I felt quite . . . worshipped.”
That was because he had worshipped her.
“You deserve better.”
Her brows came together. She pulled herself and rose from the chaise like a phoenix, wrapping herself in his coat. “It is you who is not listening. I hate that you place me up on some high shelf where you keep the things of value that you don’t want broken. But I don’t want that place of honor. I loathe it there. I loathe the way you leave me there for fear of hurting me. For fear of breaking me, as though I’m some kind of porcelain doll with no strength. With no character.”