Rake Most Likely To Seduce
Rake Most Likely To Seduce
Bronwyn Scott
‘All gamblers are alike in luck…’Although when Nolan Gray enters a high-stakes game in Venice, facing a ruthless opponent, he’ll need more than just luck. He can’t start losing now…especially when the virginity of the enthralling Gianna Minotti hangs in the balance!Fate is on his side, and Nolan seizes victory. But leaving in a gondola with Gianna and not collecting on his tantalising prize pushes Nolan to his limits! Can he help her claim her freedom when really he wants to claim her for his own?Rakes on TourOutrageous hell-raisers let loose in Europe!
RAKES ON TOUR
Outrageous hell-raisers let loose in Europe!
When London’s most notorious rakes embark on a Grand Tour they set female hearts aflutter all across Europe!
The exploits of these British rogues might be the stuff of legend, but on this adventure of a lifetime will they finally meet the women strong enough to tame their wicked ways?
Read Haviland North’s story in:
Rake Most Likely to Rebel Already available
Read Archer Crawford’s story in:
Rake Most Likely to Thrill Already available
Read Nolan Gray’s story in:
Rake Most Likely to Seduce Available now
and watch for Brennan Carr’s story:
Rake Most Likely to Sin Coming March 2016!
Author Note (#ulink_84fda59b-ab7e-5124-ad85-5f765db2c4f0)
I have a secret: Venice wasn’t supposed to be Nolan’s story. All through my planning of the mini-series it was supposed to be Brennan’s. But when the gentlemen arrived it didn’t work out that way. It didn’t take long to see that Venice suited Nolan much better—the parties, the card games, and the dark edge that haunts the periphery of Carnevale.
For the background to Nolan’s story I read John Ruskin’s original journals on Venice from his visit in the 1840s. They are fascinating and eerily predictive of Venice’s fate. I also consulted John Julius Norwich’s A History of Venice, for those of you looking to do some reading on the city.
I was fortunate enough to stop in Venice the summer before writing Nolan’s story, to reacquaint myself with the beautiful city. Many of you write and tell me you like to ‘travel’ in my stories when you can’t get out and travel yourself, so this one’s for you. Whether you’ve been to Venice in person, or in your dreams, I hope you enjoy Nolan’s Venetian vacation.
Stop by my blog at bronwynswriting.blogspot.com (http://bronwynswriting.blogspot.com) to share your own Venetian stories.
Or visit my web page at bronwynnscott.com (http://bronwynnscott.com).
Rake Most Likely to Seduce
Bronwyn Scott
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
BRONWYN SCOTT is a communications instructor at Pierce College in the United States, and is the proud mother of three wonderful children (one boy and two girls). When she’s not teaching or writing she enjoys playing the piano, travelling—especially to Florence, Italy—and studying history and foreign languages. Readers can stay in touch on Bronwyn’s website, bronwynnscott.com (http://bronwynnscott.com), or at her blog, bronwynswriting.blogspot.com (http://bronwynswriting.blogspot.com). She loves to hear from readers.
For Mike, Rebecca and Madison, who shared the second half of our Grand Tour with us. Thanks for sharing nine nights of dinners with us. Meeting you was the highlight of the trip.
Contents
Cover (#u371bcf63-7612-5e6a-a56a-cbbb2a1c1b98)
Introduction (#uf70c6aae-ab11-5600-8925-64d229ac0cb6)
Author Note (#uf1a69f74-e69a-5595-915c-04848ec112c6)
Title Page (#ud5f34ca1-121e-501a-88ab-da49252ea357)
About the Author (#u1d39b93d-500e-5614-a18a-e25ef3492349)
Dedication (#u5196a453-bb5b-5009-90aa-935378e2e4fc)
Chapter One (#u1e00746b-844a-5cdf-88dd-05254cd0994e)
Chapter Two (#u21ae614f-238a-5126-9f09-dc1784fbc510)
Chapter Three (#ue35a58b8-83dc-5827-8608-cb2c7528a273)
Chapter Four (#u8d0df465-143a-568b-a5d6-c96c31dcad32)
Chapter Five (#u25175b62-3b03-5436-a1b8-d5d7a3929f8f)
Chapter Six (#ub0961cfc-08cf-5498-8bcb-535e509804c8)
Chapter Seven (#ud9f2ecae-7558-5636-9878-a7838aad1da4)
Chapter Eight (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Nine (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Ten (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eleven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twelve (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Thirteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Fourteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Fifteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Sixteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Seventeen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eighteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Nineteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty-One (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty-Two (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty-Three (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty-Four (#litres_trial_promo)
Epilogue (#litres_trial_promo)
Extract (#litres_trial_promo)
Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter One (#ulink_025b0d68-375c-577c-a5d4-116b4eb32d99)
The Antwerp Hotel, Dover—March 1835
‘You bastard! No one has that kind of luck!’ The man across the table from Nolan Gray snarled in disbelief. ‘If you lay down another ace, I’ll...’
‘What? You’ll slice me from side to side? Shoot me where I sit?’ Nolan Gray flipped the offending card on to the table—another ace indeed—with a nonchalance that suggested threats to his bodily well-being were a common occurrence when it came to cards and late nights.
The man half rose, a menacing hulk looming over the table. He was fully provoked by his evening’s losses and Nolan’s insouciance. ‘When a fellow has the streak you’ve had, it isn’t called luck any more. It’s called something else.’ He sneered, ready to leap the table for Nolan’s throat.
‘What do you call it?’ Nolan leaned back in his chair, refusing to give the man the satisfaction of standing. He took his opponent’s measure through alert eyes. The man outweighed him by two stone. A fight wouldn’t be fair, but it wouldn’t come to that, either because the man was nothing more than a bully or because there’d be weapons drawn before fists. Nolan had seen the type before, he just hadn’t bargained on seeing that sort tonight. He should have known better. This was Dover, not an elegant London gambling club where gentlemen had their codes.
The man growled. ‘You know what I call it.’ He waved a hand at the other two men seated with them. ‘You know what we all call it.’
Poor choice of allies, Nolan thought. The other two at the table didn’t look as committed to the conflict. Then again, they hadn’t lost as much. ‘No, I’m afraid I don’t. Care to spell it out for me?’ Nolan pushed, wanting to see how far the man would dare to go. Further than Nolan had thought. He had just a moment’s warning.
The man leapt the table, but Nolan was faster. A flick of his wrist and the slim handle of a blade slipped into his hand from the hidden sheath in his sleeve. He brought the blade up under the man’s chin, using the man’s own momentum against him. If he wanted to avert further trouble, now was the time for a show of force. The others at the table discreetly pushed back their chairs, making it clear they wanted no part of this.
‘Are you calling me a cheat?’ Nolan asked coolly. He didn’t have time for this. Where was Archer? He’d been right here a moment ago and goodness knew Nolan could use some support right about now. Surely Archer hadn’t left without him. They were supposed to meet Haviland and Brennan at the dock at an ungodly hour for their boat across the Channel.
It had hardly made sense to go to bed just to get back up, so he’d stayed awake. All bloody night. And look what it got him: the local Dover card sharp on the brink of calling him out; a duel his last night in England. Haviland would kill him if he was late and they missed the boat.
The man’s chin went up a fraction either in defiance or an attempt to avoid the pricking of Nolan’s blade. ‘Damn right I’m calling you a cheat.’
‘And I’m calling you a poor loser,’ Nolan answered with equal vehemence. This wasn’t the first time this had happened. Gambling had become tedious over the years: play, win a little, then win obscenely, duel, repeat. He hoped the French with their rumoured reputation for obsessive gambling proved to be better sports than his countrymen when it came to his flair with the cards. ‘Shall we settle this like gentlemen somewhere or will you retract your comment?’ He had to be at the docks in under an hour. Through the long windows of the hotel, he could see a coach draw up to the kerb—his coach. Perhaps he could squeeze in a duel if he was fast enough. Or maybe he should just make a run for it, although he hated the thought of letting this man get away with calling him names he didn’t deserve. He’d counted those cards fair and square. Having a sharp mind was no crime.
They were starting to draw a crowd, even at four o’clock in the morning. Workers who rose with the city were coming into the hotel for their early morning shifts and deliveries. Wasn’t this what he wanted to avoid? Being conspicuous? Scandal had driven him out of London, his father finally appalled by his son’s level of notoriety.
Nolan lowered the knife and gave the man a shove, sending him sprawling back over the table. He tossed him a look of disgust, scraping his winnings into his coat pocket. ‘You aren’t worth it.’ The sooner he was out of England, the better, but this was hardly the note he wanted to leave on. At least it was unlikely rumour would get back to his father that his son had been involved in a near duel just moments before his ship left. The Antwerp Hotel was hardly his father’s environs.
He’d nearly reached the door when a sixth sense alerted him. The bastard hadn’t stayed down, hadn’t recognised mercy when it was meted out. Nolan whirled with a shout, blade flashing. He caught the glint of a pistol barrel in the light of the hotel lobby’s chandelier not yet doused for the oncoming day. Without hesitation, he let his knife fly, straight into the man’s shoulder. The pistol clattered to the ground. The clerk behind the desk gasped in disbelief. ‘Mr Gray, this is a decent establishment!’
‘He started it!’ Nolan retorted. ‘He’s not hurt too badly.’ Nolan had been careful with his aim—too careful. There was no question of retrieving the knife. The man lurched forward, his adrenaline overriding his pain for the moment. Later there would be plenty of that. It was time for a getaway. The clerk would call the watch and there would be questions.
Nolan raced out into the dark courtyard, spotting Archer coming towards him in the darkness from the stables. That was to be expected. Archer loved horses more than humans. ‘Archer, old chap! We’ve got to go!’ Nolan seized his arm without stopping and dragged him towards the waiting coach, his words coming fast, well aware his pursuer had stumbled out of the hotel. ‘Don’t look now, but that angry man behind us thinks I cheated. He has a gun and my good knife. It’s in his shoulder, but I think he shoots with both—hands, that is. It wouldn’t make sense the other way.’ Nolan pulled open the coach door and they tumbled in, the coach lurching to a start before the door was even shut.
‘Ah! A clean getaway.’ Nolan sank back against the seat, a satisfied grin on his face.
‘It doesn’t always have to be a “getaway”. Sometimes we can exit a building like normal people.’ Archer straightened the cuffs of his coat and gave Nolan a scolding look.
‘It was fairly normal,’ Nolan protested.
‘You left a knife embedded in a man’s shoulder, not exactly the most discreet of departures. You got away in the nick of time.’
Nolan merely grinned, unfazed by the scolding. If he had been discreet, he would have stopped playing two hours ago. The other players could have respectably quit the table, their pride and at least some money intact. ‘Speaking of time, do you think Haviland is at the docks yet?’ They were scheduled to meet two friends at the boat this morning to begin their Grand Tour. ‘I’ll wager you five pounds Haviland is there.’
Archer laughed. ‘At this hour? He’s not there. Everything was loaded last night. There’s no reason for him to be early. Besides, he has to drag Brennan’s sorry self out of bed. That will slow him down.’ He and Haviland had known each other since Eton. Haviland was notoriously prompt, but he wouldn’t be early and Brennan was always late.
‘Easiest five pounds I’ll ever make. I bet he’s already there, pacing like a lion, and he’s got his fencing case with him. He won’t let it out of his sight.’ Then, because he couldn’t refuse the goad, ‘Kind of like my knife.’ But Archer hadn’t heard. His friend had leaned back and closed his eyes.
Nolan was too alert to doze. He thought about his five pounds. They would indeed be easy winnings, but Archer could afford it. He looked out the window. Haviland was already there, he’d wager more than five pounds on that truth. Archer might be Haviland North’s best friend, but Nolan knew people and Haviland was a warrior. He wouldn’t be parted from his weapons of choice. Besides, Haviland was anxious to be off. Nolan wasn’t sure what demons were driving Haviland, but they were driving hard and fast, as odd as the notion was.
To all appearances, Haviland North’s life was perfect; he was rich, in line for a choice title and endowed with extraordinary good looks. Haviland had it all. And yet, he couldn’t leave England fast enough. He would have been there an hour ago watching them load the carriages even if the trunks had all been stowed last night.
A movement outside the window grabbed his gaze. He squinted and rubbed a circle on the window for a better view. For a moment he thought they’d been followed. Was that his man outside? But, no, this was no man. He nudged Archer with a boot. ‘Care to explain why a horse is following us?’
Archer mumbled, ‘I sort of rescued him this morning.’
‘You abandoned me for a horse? I could have been killed,’ Nolan exclaimed.
‘And yet it was your knife in his shoulder. You were doing fine on your own,’ Archer replied drily, moving his gaze to the window.
The drive to the docks was short despite the foggy dawn, and the horse was still with them, running alongside the carriage. Nolan clambered down from the coach, letting Archer deal with the horse. He sighted a tall, lone figure on the docks and let out a whoop, calling to Archer, ‘What did I tell you? There he is. I win! Look at that, he’s even got his case with him.’
Haviland strode towards them and Nolan clasped him affectionately on the shoulder. ‘Good morning, Old Man. Is everything loaded to your satisfaction? I told Archer you’d be here overseeing.’
Haviland laughed. ‘You know me too well, the coaches went on an hour ago.’ Nolan was glad Haviland was handling the details. If it had been up to him, he’d simply have packed a trunk, jumped on board a ship and left everything on the other side up to fate. He was far more spontaneous than Haviland and Archer. It was the one gift of having to live an imperfect life. He’d learned early to be one step ahead of the blow so that when it fell, he was miles away.
The other benefit in not having an ideal family life was that he had nothing to live up to, not like Haviland, who was going to inherit the Englishman’s perception of Heaven on Earth, or Archer, whose family owned the most successful and expensive stud farm in Newmarket—for fun. Yes, they’d inherit perfection but they’d also have to spend their lives maintaining it for future generations. That was a lot of pressure.
He had no such pressure to conform to family tradition. The only perfection he’d inherited was his memory. He could count cards, three to four decks’ worth if he had to, and he could calculate odds. That inheritance was quite portable. Of course, he’d inherited plenty of imperfections along with it. Those were in no short supply, starting with a puritanical father who firmly believed in beating excellence into his children at all costs and ended with the reality that choice created: his family hadn’t seen each other in ten years. As soon as he and his brother had come of age, they’d scattered just as they had in the summers home from school—they’d never actually come home from school. They’d always arranged to spend the summers with friends. School might not have been intellectually edifying to him, but Nolan had found it freeing in other ways. He’d met Haviland, after all, and it had been the saving of him.
Archer was ribbing Haviland about keeping his case with him when Nolan’s thoughts re-engaged the conversation. ‘I told you that, too. I know these things, I’m a student of human nature.’ He laughed.
‘Too bad you couldn’t study that at Oxford,’ Archer joked. ‘You might have got better marks.’
Nolan laughed. He and Archer had been sparring for years. They had each other’s measure. When he hadn’t been spending summers with Haviland, he’d been spending them with Archer. ‘What can I say? It’s true. You two were the scholars, not me and Brennan.’ Nolan looked around, realising the absence of their fourth member. ‘Is Brennan here yet?’ Time was getting dear.
‘No.’ Haviland shook his head. ‘Did you expect him to be? Scholar of human nature that you are.’ He ribbed.
Nolan gave Haviland a playful shove. ‘A scholar of human nature, yes, a psychic, no.’ He grinned. He was looking forward to this trip more than he realised, the four of them back together again. It would be like old times. Indeed, they saw each other in London during the Season, but it wasn’t the same. The four of them were never all together at once. Archer was always in Newmarket these days. It was either he and Brennan or he and Haviland. Even then it was usually just for drinks at the club or a quick greeting at a ball.
All of them were approaching thirty, that most important age for men of their birth, when they were expected to marry and settle down. This trip might very well be their last time together as bachelors unencumbered by the responsibility of wives and children. Haviland would marry—it had already been arranged. Archer would follow. A man who loved breeding horses would surely love to breed his own children. As for Brennan? It would depend on who would have him on a more permanent basis. He was probably with a woman right now.
The captain of the vessel approached and urged them to board, making it clear he would not wait for the rest of their party. Haviland blew out a breath after the captain left, blaming himself for Brennan’s tardiness. ‘I should have stayed with him.’
Nolan murmured something encouraging. Brennan would be here. He had to be. Brennan was always late, always on the verge of trouble. Not too unlike himself. He was just better prepared for it. Brennan never saw it coming until it was too late. Perhaps that was why he liked Brennan, they were kindred spirits of a sort. They both had messy, imperfect lives. They both lived in the moment. Brennan wasn’t a planner and that was certainly working against him this morning. Nolan could imagine him oversleeping in some woman’s bed only to wake too late and realise he’d missed the boat.
Waiting was a luxury they couldn’t afford. It wasn’t an issue of just catching another boat. Channel crossings didn’t run on schedules, they ran on the weather. Nolan knew they were lucky their own crossing today was proceeding like clockwork. He opted to keep spirits up. He clapped a hand on Archer’s back as the three of them moved towards the boat. ‘I’ll wager Brennan misses the boat,’ he announced with forced joviality. ‘Archer, are you in? If I’m wrong, you can win back your losses.’ Please let me be wrong. He had every hope Brennan would come dashing up at the last minute.
They took up positions at the rail facing the dock. Nolan knew they were all hoping for a glimpse of their errant companion, but time was slipping away. He started at the sound of chains in motion. ‘They’re pulling the anchor. He’s not going to make it,’ Nolan said quietly, leaning on his arms. ‘Dammit! I didn’t want to win that bet.’ He exchanged glances with Haviland and Archer as the boat slowly nudged away from the dock. The trip was off to an ominous start.
Then he saw it—commotion on the pier, a figure racing towards them, shirttails flapping. Suddenly, Haviland was shouting, ‘It’s him, it’s Brennan!’ And he wasn’t alone. Nolan could make out two men behind him, one of them armed as they gave very hearty chase. Whoever they were, they meant business.
Haviland moved first, sprinting towards the back of the boat. Nolan stayed rooted where he was, his eyes focused on something else moving behind the men, something dark and swift. Next to him, Archer made it out first. ‘My horse!’
Nolan and Archer thundered down the length of the boat behind Haviland who was waving his arms and shouting commands to Brennan. Impossible commands, really, such as ‘jump’ and ‘don’t jump here, it’s too wide, jump at the back of the boat where it hasn’t left the dock yet. Hurry!’
It was insanity, by the time they reached the stern, even that part of the boat had left a gap between the dock and the deck. Brennan would never make the jump. If Brennan missed... There was no time to contemplate the consequences. ‘The horse, Archer, look!’ Nolan shouted. The bay had come up alongside Brennan, matching his stride to the running man.
Archer took the idea from there, cupping his hands around his mouth. ‘Get on the horse, Bren! Jump him!’
Nolan felt the moment suspend itself in time. He watched Brennan grab the mane and swing himself up bareback. It would be a mad jump even with stirrups and a saddle. But Brennan was an excellent rider, as good as Archer and far more reckless.
The horse leapt.
And landed. On its knees, on the deck.
Time sped up again. He and Archer grappled for the reins, trying to keep the horse calm. Haviland wrestled Brennan off the downed horse. Nolan glanced back at the shore. The two men in pursuit were forced to give up their efforts, having reached the edge of the pier. One of them raised his gun. Nolan hit the deck with Archer and the horse just as Brennan shoved Haviland to the ground. The bullet whined harmlessly overhead, but, dear lord, it had been a near thing. A second or two would have made a tragic difference. If Brennan hadn’t pushed Haviland down...
Nolan’s eyes narrowed in speculation. Deuce take it! Brennan had suspected they would fire. What kind of trouble had he got himself into this time? Haviland was already asking those questions as the group picked themselves up from the deck and brushed off their clothes. Archer marched the horse off to temporary stabling and Brennan was all smiles as he tucked in his shirttails despite Haviland’s scolding. Definitely a woman, then. It was usually a woman with Brennan.
Clothing settled and greetings exchanged, Nolan drawled his question. ‘So the real issue isn’t where you’ve been, but was she worth it?’
Brennan’s blue eyes were merry, his face splitting into a wide, satisfied grin as the wind ruffled his auburn hair. He laughed up at the sky and Nolan knew the answer before he even said it. ‘Always, Nol, always.’
Nolan grinned, too. The crisis was past. The future lay spread out before them. It would be a while before he saw England again and that was fine with him. Deep down, he wondered if he’d ever see it again and was not surprised to discover he wouldn’t mind if he didn’t. Grand Tours took years and all he had was time.
Chapter Two (#ulink_ec91dbca-26c3-5985-ad5d-e2b23df5eb1a)
Venice, Italy—winter 1836
All gamblers are alike in luck. They know the exhilaration of dice rattling in boxes, the adrenaline fuelled by hot tables, the decadent thrill of hinging everything on the turn of a card and when that card favours them, they know a surge of elation so great they become immortal gods in the moment of victory. But no two gamblers are alike in their fall. From the moment the cards desert them, to the moment they should have walked away and didn’t, gamblers are always unlucky alone.
Nolan Gray knew when a man was broke and Count Agostino Minotti was very close. Surrounded by the opulence of Palazzo Calergi where every whim was anticipated by the serving staff, where no one should have any worries, Count Agostino had worries aplenty. The signs were there in the desperate sweat on his brow, in the sharpness of his eyes as his brain rapidly inventoried his assets, searching for anything left worth bartering to cover the latest hand—the one in which he was sure his luck would turn.
Nolan knew it wouldn’t. His own hand was too good, and if there was such a thing as luck, it favoured the intelligent. Surely, the count had to know the odds of drawing the queen of spades were nearly non-existent. The count would never complete his straight. He’d been rather obviously collecting high-end spades this hand and everyone at the table knew it. Nolan didn’t suffer fools who couldn’t count cards nor did he have much sympathy for men who overplayed their funds. The count should have walked away an hour ago. Nolan only hoped the man would be able to cover tonight’s commitments. He had plans for that money.
The count pushed the rest of his money to the centre of the table, not nearly enough to cover the bet. What else would the count offer? The count’s next words took Nolan alternately by surprise and then disgust. ‘Two hundred lire and my daughter’s maidenhead.’
That was certainly different than the items wagered at English tables. But it made the man no less of a bastard to offer it. The principle of the matter dug sharp claws into Nolan’s sense of fair play. A gambler could risk anything he or she liked as long as it was theirs. But to risk what belonged singularly to another, to someone who was not directly involved in the play at the table and who had no say in the decision was beyond the pale of acceptability.
A quick glance around the table indicated he was the only one who apparently held any such scruples. There was a certain irony in that considering how jaded his palate had become over the years. He’d wagered and won numerous non-traditional items of interest in his career. But never a woman who hadn’t first offered herself as barter. Even then, that particular woman had wanted to lose. To him. On purpose. This was entirely different, and Nolan wasn’t sure he liked it.
The man to his left was greedily reassessing his hand. The man to his right made a crass comment about the girl in question and his own prowess that was better reserved for a cheap whorehouse than Palazzo Calergi’s elegant interiors. The others at the table laughed and threw out their own crudities, each one worse than its predecessor. Nolan felt his temper rise on behalf of the unseen girl. He counselled himself with quiet caution. He did not need to get sucked into this. Logic reminded him there was much he didn’t know about the situation. Logic also reminded him he was still the richest man at the table tonight and the one with the best hand. They were all playing against him. He was in charge. He would be the one to decide the girl’s fate; take her away from this with him or leave her to one of the others unless he could head this disaster off.
His first line of attack was to dissuade the count, perhaps even to rouse some dissent on behalf of the girl once these men saw sense. ‘Five thousand lire? That seems a bit expensive.’ The table didn’t seem to think so. These were born Venetians and this was Venice at Carnevale where virginity was a most elusive commodity. A city didn’t acquire a reputation for having the most accommodating courtesans in Europe by hoarding virgins. The economics of supply and demand made the price believable. So did the count’s desperation. Almost. This was a man who had been desperate before.
‘What insurance do we have that she’s actually a virgin? How do we know you haven’t offered her before?’ Nolan jested lightly, pushing his case as he watched the table, his body tensed for action should his comment meet with offence. The count was a desperate man and a reckless one if he was willing to sell his daughter to cover a bet. Assuming the woman in question was his daughter. The count didn’t particularly impress Nolan as a fatherly figure for obvious reasons. Still, he wouldn’t be the first man alive to be poorly suited for the occupation. Nolan’s own father would rival him there.
Minotti’s eyes narrowed dangerously. ‘Are you saying my daughter is a whore?’
‘Is she?’ Nolan leaned back in his chair, the nonchalance belying the tension coiled within him. If Minotti came at him, he would be ready. He could feel the comforting press of his new blade inside the sleeve of his coat. It could be in his hand in under a second.
Minotti’s eyes slid to the left, towards the long windows overlooking the Grand Canal, his voice smug with triumph. ‘Judge for yourself. She’s the one in pale blue, my Gianna.’
Nolan would have known her without the description. She was the one who looked out of place despite the blatant wealth exhibited in the expensive pearl-encrusted blue-damask gown. Good lord, the gown must weigh fifteen pounds on its own, adorning the palazzo as if it were an art piece designed for the room. Still, the richness of her costume couldn’t disguise the fact that she didn’t belong here. Palazzo Calergi might be a regal setting and this might be a private party for a few hundred of its owners’ personal friends and their guests, but it was still a party in the middle of Carnevale, hardly the sort of venue one took a daughter to. Her head turned towards the table as if she sensed she’d become the topic of conversation, her eyes landing on Nolan. On second thought, five thousand might be a generous bargain indeed, virgin or not.
The girl was stunning in her own right once one got past the dress. Certainly not in the way the other women in the room were stunning with their cosmetics, low-cut silks, and elaborate coiffures, the products of hours and artifice. Her beauty was natural, clean, somehow apart from the cosmopolitan elegance surrounding her and yet her beauty was not the lesser for what could only be described as its plainness. It was her skin that did it; a smooth, pink-tinged alabaster and as translucent, framed by hair so dark it appeared black at this distance.
Her eyes might have helped the cause, too. He could not tell the colour from this distance, but it hardly mattered. Her eyes were shrewd and sharp as they held his; challenging, thinking. Nolan had the uncomfortable sensation he was being assessed. Did she feel the same with the eyes of the table riveted on her? Did she know her father had put her up for auction to the winning hand? If she didn’t know, her fate would come as shock. If she did, however...
Cynicism flashed. Had father and daughter done this before? Was this some sort of scam they ran whenever the count was down on his luck? The whole offer smelled of trouble. Nolan’s eyes dropped back to the cards in his hand. The tiny voice of caution that usually kept quiet in his head was barking loudly now, joined by a strong sense of self-preservation. He should throw the hand and win the money elsewhere.
This money came with strings—more precisely, it came with a virgin. That was the very last thing he needed. What would he ever do with a virgin? He certainly wasn’t going to bed a woman against her will. Nolan’s eyes went to the pile in the centre of the table. But the money was a temptation nonpareil. Only noblemen wagered sums like these. This would take several nights to acquire at lesser venues. It would be a shame to waste this rather golden opportunity. Tonight would put him at his goal. His hopes were within reach. One virgin wasn’t going to stand in his way. Across the table, the count raised his hand and beckoned for the girl.
* * *
Gianna saw the summons, aware that the count and his table had been watching her. Worry pooled in her anxious pit of a stomach. What hell had he concocted for her now? Hadn’t the hell he’d presented her with this afternoon been enough to satisfy his jaded palate? Dante’s Inferno had nothing on Count Minotti when it came to exacting revenge or getting what he wanted.
She smoothed her hands over her elaborate skirts in a calming repetition of strokes and repeated her silent mantra: the count would not stand in her way. She would not allow him to. Whatever he did, she would be equal to the task. She would outthink him, outmanoeuvre him as she always had. She’d done it for five years. She could do it for four more weeks. He cannot hurt you. He would not dare. The money will protect you. But the usual comfort the words gave her was absent tonight. Her freedom was within reach, just a month away after years living under his so-called protection.
At the table, the count took her arm and she pulled away, not tolerating his touch. ‘Still upset by this afternoon, my pet?’ The count’s tone was wry as if this afternoon had been a minor concern, a mere game. But it hadn’t been, not to her and not to him. But she would not suffer him to touch her again.
‘What have you done?’ She kept her tones low, her eyes fixed on the count. The men at the table were eyeing her with something nearing avarice. Gianna’s anxiety was rising steadily, although she dare not show it. The count would like to see her fear, like to know he had power over her.
The count gave a shrug of his shoulders as if to indicate it was nothing of significance. ‘I am having a bit of bad luck tonight, I’m afraid. But that’s about to change. I have a good hand. I am sure to win.’
Gianna knew where the conversation was going. It was a distasteful one, but one she could handle. She reached up to pull off the pearl earrings that had once belonged to her mother. The count had ordered her to wear them tonight. He’d probably planned on forcing her to surrender them. He knew how she treasured them. She had resisted giving them to him once. It had been a mistake. It had shown the count they had emotional value to her. She’d quickly learned not to make that mistake twice.
The count gave a slight shake of his dark head. Gianna’s jaw tightened and her hands went to the clasp of her pearl choker. They were just things, she told herself. Placate him, give him what he wants. These are nothing in the scope of the greater picture. After their quarrel this afternoon, his demand could have been worse. She would be thankful for this small mercy. She only wanted to be done with him. She would do whatever it took to make it through the next four weeks. She would be twenty-two, old enough to claim her inheritance without him. Whatever her mother had seen in the man during her lifetime, Gianna could only guess.
The count shook his head again and Gianna froze. ‘You are very generous, but I’m afraid your pearls won’t be enough.’ His mouth turned up in a cruel smile. ‘Not those pearls anyway. There is one pearl these gentlemen seem to value, however.’ He paused. ‘I have wagered you, Gianna. More specifically, the pearl between your legs.’
Panic swamped her. He repeated himself, no doubt enjoying the perverse pleasure of saying the crude words out loud. On the surface, it was an appalling wager. Beneath that surface it was truly horrific in a way only the count would recognise. ‘Does my mother mean so little to you that you would make her daughter a whore?’
‘Your mother is dead. She holds no sway here,’ he countered, his words bloodless. ‘I offered you better this afternoon and you refused. You did this to yourself.’
Stay calm. Under no circumstances show him any emotion. She understood the men’s stares now. They were undressing her, imagining what they would do with her, to her, all except one whose gaze was on the count. Her stomach turned. The grip on her ‘calm’ was slipping. It was a Herculean task to maintain her reserve. She wanted to grab up the carefully blown glass goblets on the table and smash them against the silk-clad walls, to rage out loud against the count’s latest barbarism. She would show these men nothing, certainly not the count who thought he could pass her about, wager her as if she was nothing more than a bauble of mediocre value; as if he could wreck her plans with the turn of a card, as if she had no say in the matter. That last was a sticking point. Legally, she had no say, not until she turned twenty-two.
‘This is revenge,’ she accused, anger coursing through her, volcanic and explosive. If she was a man, she’d kill him. But if she were a man this would not have happened. She would have left the count years ago. ‘You are blackmailing me.’
‘This, my dear, is what happens when you leave me no choice,’ the count hissed.
‘Your offer was to marry the morally corrupt Romano Lippi, or to marry you,’ Gianna spat. ‘It was hardly a choice since either option turns a substantial portion of my inheritance over to you.’ She knew a moment’s triumph at the dark look stealing over his face. ‘I’m not stupid. I know exactly what you and Lippi had arranged. The two of you decided to split the inheritance.’
‘I must have something, Gianna. I’ll have my five thousand pounds with or without you. I’m broke and you are all I have left. Don’t worry. I will win and you can rethink your position on today’s negotiations. This is nothing. You’re only being wagered in theory.’
The count took his seat with a wide smile and a relaxed bonhomie at odds with their terse conversation. She was trapped. She would run if she could, but aside from the fact she had nowhere to run, she simply couldn’t. The dratted dress was far too heavy for anything but a sedate walk. So Gianna stood, she waited, she watched and tried not to panic.
The count leaned forward, his face flushed with the fever of the wager and the surety that he couldn’t possibly lose. ‘All right, gentlemen, let’s see your cards.’ Gianna stilled. This was it, the moment of truth.
Chapter Three (#ulink_baae7bfb-1bef-5256-9d47-0140660e7ba2)
Nolan knew the truth before the cards were laid down. The count’s hand was good, good enough to understand why he’d had hope of winning. But the count, like many amateur gamblers, lacked the ability to see beyond his own hand. Nolan knew not only what he, himself, held, but what others at the table held as well. The count had not yet learned that a hand was ‘good’ only by comparison.
Nolan lay down his hand. There were a few humorous moans from the other players who hadn’t bet more than they could afford to lose with some élan. But the count went pale. He’d lost everything, even his daughter. Ostensibly. Nolan still didn’t quite believe she was his daughter or even a virgin, although the paleness of the count’s face was starting to make it believable. Or perhaps it was only loser’s remorse, the crash that came after the high of an extraordinary wager before it had gone bust. The girl beside him showed no reaction beyond the movement of her eyes locking on his, a sharp, hazel-green gaze.
In that moment he knew he’d been wrong. She was not a girl. This was a woman. It was hard to be sure of her age, of her experience. Certainly, she was not a first-Season débutante, but neither could she be more than a year or two over twenty. There were flashes of youth in her at odds with the shrewdness he’d seen in her gaze, but she was a woman. Girlhood had been left behind years ago. The question surfaced again: had she done this before? He could usually read people well, but she was blank to him.
‘Perhaps another hand, Signor Gray?’ The count’s voice couldn’t disguise the tremor. Nolan had expected it, the gambler’s recourse; a second hand, a second try, anything to erase the sting of defeat.
‘Do you have another daughter to lose?’ Nolan queried in wry tones. He gave the man a rueful smile in the silence as he rose. The table had become deadly quiet. He needed to make a quick exit for everyone’s sake. ‘I didn’t think so. You have nothing left to wager.’ Nolan extended his hand to the daughter, her face still a blank canvas devoid of any emotion even as her fate clarified itself. There would be no quarter given to the count. He would be held to his brash wager. If she was frightened, angry, embarrassed or any of the thousand emotions one might feel after having been sold into a bargain not of their making, those emotions didn’t show. But Nolan was not dense enough to assume those emotions didn’t exist beneath her calm surface. Calm surfaces harboured all variety of dangers in his experience.
‘Signorina, it seems we are to leave together.’ Nolan took her arm. He would treat her respectfully until she gave him a reason not to. He did not envy her the situation. If she was innocent of all this, she must be in shock. If she was a knowing accomplice, she would be the one to directly endure the brunt of his anger when her duplicity was found out.
Nolan nodded once to the count. When he spoke, his words were for Minotti, but his manners were for her in the hopes of assuring her all would be well. ‘Buonanotte, your night ends here, I think, Minotti. Better luck another day. I shall return her to you.’ It was generous of him. Returning had not explicitly been part of the arrangement. Neither had not returning her. The parameters of this arrangement were somewhat nebulous in regards to their permanence. Nolan wondered which choice offered her the better chance. Would going back to the count only lead to more of this? The idea of her staying with him was impossible, not part of his plans. Nolan could only imagine what Brennan would say—when he stopped laughing.
* * *
This was no laughing matter. Panic receded in the wake of her anger. She had been sold to a foreigner and now she was being carted off like chattel. Not literally, of course. She’d not been slung across his rather broad shoulders, but even the touch of his hand at her back, guiding her through the crush of the ballroom, was too much for her roiling temper. She stepped beyond his reach, her words cold and demanding. ‘Take your hand off me. I am not your property.’
The Englishman chuckled, not the least put off by her cold tone, his voice was low and easy at her ear as he claimed her elbow, his arrogance unequalled. ‘My four aces beg to differ with your assessment.’
‘You don’t own me.’ Her words were vehement, but they were only words. There was no substance behind them and they both knew it. At the moment, she had nowhere to run, nowhere to go except with him. She needed a plan. She needed a way to see the silver lining. How could she turn this tragedy into an opportunity? If she could push past the panic that had consumed her at the table; the anger and disbelief that consumed her now, she could find a solution. But the Englishman’s arrogant words made it difficult.
‘Again, I must beg to differ. You’re as much my property as five thousand lire, Signor Bellosi’s gold watch and four diamond stickpins. The only difference is that you’re not as useful. I can’t convert you to cash.’
That did it. If there had been any lingering vestiges of shock, he’d effectively exorcised them. She would not be the pawn of any man again, not the count and certainly not this Englishman who acted as if this were a grand lark. At the bottom of the palazzo’s steep steps, gondolas bobbed on the waters of the canal. The Englishman handed her in and waited patiently for her to sit and arrange her art piece of a dress before joining her on the plush velvet seat. He had manners aplenty, even if he was arrogant, and that was something at least. She would take what she could get. It was starting to sink in just how much danger she was really in. If the money hadn’t protected her, nothing would.
He called out directions to the gondolier. ‘Hotel Danieli, per favore.’ Gianna smiled to herself. He had good manners and good taste, part of his arrogance, she supposed. He was a man who liked the best and perhaps therein lay his flaw. A proud man was blind to his weaknesses. She would exploit them if she had to, as long as he let her stay.
It was the hotel that clinched her decision, that showed her the silver lining. Staying was the key. The count had attempted to frighten her into compliance tonight, but he’d made a grave mistake. When he’d lost his hand, he’d inadvertently set her free. For a few days or for as long as the Englishman was willing to keep her, she was beyond the count’s control. Gianna didn’t fool herself into believing it would be easy. If, after a few days, she didn’t return, the count would come looking for her. She would have to act fast.
She couldn’t go back, not after tonight. Gianna shuddered to think of what going back would entail. The count would be cruel, crueller than he’d ever been. If he was willing to sell her virginity in a card game, there was no telling what he’d do next in order to get what he wanted. His home was no longer safe for her, if it had ever been.
Safe was a relative term in this case. If it was only herself to consider, she’d leave the city, but she couldn’t leave the city, not yet. There were things she needed to retrieve from the count’s home, she needed Giovanni and she needed her money. Otherwise there would be no way to support the two of them. Until those items were assured, she needed somewhere to live. She also needed a protector or at least the illusion of one.
Her mind began to work, a plan started to form, beginning with the premise that she’d catch more flies with sugar than vinegar. Perhaps the Englishman would play the role of protector for her if given the correct incentive. To do that, though, she’d have to change her current tack immediately. Everything hinged on the Englishman letting her stay beyond the night.
That conjured a host of other thoughts regarding what she might be required to do in order for her persuasion to be successful. Certainly, the Englishman was expecting to claim that which he’d won. A shiver took her. In her anger, her disbelief and panic over her plans being shredded, it had been easy to shove aside the more practical implication of what the wager involved: sex. With a stranger. With this man who sat beside her, a man about whom she knew nothing except his accommodations and that his manners, while nicely turned, bordered on arrogant. But perhaps she’d find a way to avoid that, too.
‘The Hotel Danieli is the finest in the city...’ she began, trying to make the stranger less strange. Perhaps if they talked, she could build some rapport. ‘It used to be a private palazzo.’ Gianna shivered again, this time from the breeze off the canal. She regretted not having had the Englishman stop for her cloak. Then again, if she had her cloak, she wouldn’t have an excuse for what she did next.
‘Are you cold?’ He shifted in his seat, but before he could shrug out of his coat and play the gentleman, she inched close until there was no space between them on the seat and pressed against him.
‘Just a little, I left my cloak behind. Would you mind if I...?’ She put her hand in the pocket of his evening coat, letting her words trail off in a delicate fade. She tossed him a smile. ‘Thank you, that’s better, much better.’
It was also much more ‘friendly’. The outside pocket of his evening coat proved to be a very intimate location indeed when one was seated. Her hand rested mere inches from a very private part of him that seemed compelled to stir at the proximity of her fingers. In a sense that was good. She wanted him attracted to her. But it was also a reminder of what might be surrendered in order to secure the larger goal.
They rode in silence after that, the Englishman not inclined towards conversation. The night spoke around them in the passing songs of the gondoliers and the laughter of revellers on the canals until the gondola bumped against the pier. The gondolier called out, ‘Hotel Danieli, signor.’
The Englishman extracted her hand from his pocket rather reluctantly, and stepped out of the barque. He passed some coins to the boatman, his words catching her entirely by surprise. ‘Take the lady wherever she’d like.’
Here! She wanted to be taken here, Gianna fought the urge to cry out. Surely he didn’t mean to leave her? Is this what he’d been thinking in the gondola? How to get rid of her? In all of her imaginings it had never occurred to her that he might find the arrangement as distasteful as she did. He was a man, after all, and men were all alike, her mama had taught her. Men were governed by sex.
She’d tried to make herself agreeable. She’d made conversation, to which he hadn’t responded. She’d put her hand in his pocket, to which he had responded. Sweet heaven, she’d almost touched his cock! He was not getting away this easy, not when she’d decided she had plans for him. Gianna bolted into action with a sharp cry. ‘Aspetta! Stop!’ She climbed clumsily to her feet, her hasty efforts hampered by her heavy skirts. She stumbled and got back up, the gondola rocking. She should have stilled and waited for the boat to settle but her mind was fixated on the Englishman. Her plans were not going to be wrecked by two men in one night. He couldn’t set her free. She had plans—admittedly, they were hastily concocted ones built in the silence of the boat ride, but plans none the less, to replace the ones the count had destroyed.
The Englishman stepped forward, holding up his hands in a placating gesture. ‘Signorina, I think you misunderstand. I am giving you your freedom. This is where you and I part ways.’ He said it as if ending their association was a good thing. They were not parting ways, not until she decided it.
Gianna faced him, hands on hips, trying to look dignified in a dangerously rocking boat. She pushed back a strand of hair and tilted her chin in defiance, struggling to maintain her balance. ‘No, signor, you misunderstand. This is the part where I—’
Stay.
The word never left her mouth. The gondolier gave a warning yelp and leapt for the pier. Gianna surged forward to the dock, hoping to escape the inevitable, but she was too slow. The boat tipped. She hit the water.
‘Gianna!’ The Englishman’s voice was the last sound she heard before she went under.
Two sensations hit her simultaneously: the water was dark. No lantern light reached the depths—
someone could fall in and simply disappear without being seen even if their fall had been noted. Second was that it was cold, so very cold. Gianna tried to push to the surface, arms and legs working to propel her upwards, but she had little momentum with nothing for her legs to push off from and an enormous amount of drag from her skirts. She needed more strength than she possessed.
She had no intentions of simply giving up. It would suit the count too well if she died. Everything she had would be his. He wouldn’t have to wait out the next four weeks. It would certainly suit the Englishman who had been so eager to send her away. No one would care except Giovanni. Giovanni was counting on her. But her air was failing, her strength was failing. What would happen to Giovanni?
There was a splash in the water beside her, a hand about her waist, another arm pushing upwards with her now. She lent her own meagre efforts, hurrying them upwards out of the murk. Haste was important now. Spots danced behind the lids of her eyes. If she lost consciousness, her dead weight would drag them both down. The surface at last! Her head broke the water and she dragged in a great breath, the Englishman beside her, his voice filling the night with directions.
‘We’re over here! I’ve got her. Get her up! Someone bring a blanket.’ It took two of them; the Englishman inelegantly pushing her up from behind, his hands on her bum, and the gondolier tugging her by the armpits to the pier. Task accomplished, the Englishman braced his hands on the dock and levered himself up with enviable, easy strength. He took the offered blanket and threw it about her shoulders. ‘Let’s get you inside.’
Gianna was shivering, unable to do anything but let him guide her into the opulent lobby of Hotel Danieli, his arm around her, holding her close to his side. She caught sight of herself in one of the long Venetian mirrors and groaned. She looked exactly like what she was—a soaking wet woman who’d just fallen into the canal. The Englishman, however, managed to look like a prince, all dripping six feet of him. Even wet and dressed in ruined clothing and barefoot. ‘You took time to remove your boots,’ she accused testily. She’d been panicking underwater, facing certain death, and he’d taken time to pull off his boots.
The Englishman laughed, a warm, light chuckle. She had the sensation again that everything was a lark, even death. ‘I assumed you didn’t want us to both drown? Your dress weighed enough without contending with my boots.’ He put his mouth close to her ear the way he had in the ballroom. ‘There’s a reason, Gianna, people swim naked.’
Her cold body went hot at the words, the sound of her name on his lips, the tickle of his breath at her ear. It was a most inappropriate comment made at a most inappropriate time in a most inappropriate place. Not surprising considering how the evening had gone. It fit perfectly with everything else that had occurred: she’d been wagered and lost in a card game by the one man her mother had trusted to look out for her, her plans for freedom from the count were now entirely undermined and her fate was in the hands of a stranger. What else could go wrong? What else was there to go wrong?
Chapter Four (#ulink_283c839e-bfd4-5390-bafc-63250e4c52a0)
The room was sumptuous. Perhaps it was safe to assume that the worst had happened. Perhaps her luck was starting to change. His rooms were of the finest quality: furniture upholstered in silk, long curtains with luxurious folds draped the windows like a woman’s ball gown where the rooms looked out over the canal. From here, there was a view of the chamber beyond with its enormous bed strewn with pillows. Even at a distance, that room exuded decadence, a not-so-subtle reminder that what had started this night might still very well finish it. Sex was a powerful weapon when used correctly. Gianna hoped she knew enough to wield it. She shivered and drew the blanket tighter around her.
‘Let’s get you into a bath. Come with me.’ He led her into the bedroom and through a door into the most incredible room she’d ever seen, a room entirely given over to the function of bathing. There was a porcelain tub rooted to the floor. He bent over the handles and turned them, water flowed. Steam rose.
‘Oh.’ She gasped. She’d heard of such features before, but they were non-existent at the count’s house. This was positively divine. The Englishman moved about, laying out plush white towels and a thick bar of milled soap, so intricately carved she almost didn’t want to use it and destroy its perfection.
His hands were at the back of her gown before she realised it. ‘Let’s get you out of this. What a mess.’
There was no sense protesting. She couldn’t possibly take it off by herself. Gianna let his fingers work the long row of tiny pearl buttons at her back. His touch was swift, professional and yet beneath that layer of competence, there was a sensually compelling undertone that suggested his hands would feel good on her skin. Surely that boded well for the next level of her plan?
‘It took my maid twenty minutes to do up the buttons. You’ve done this before.’ Gianna tried for levity, anything to keep her mind off the fact that she was alone in a hotel room with a man she didn’t know and she was there for the express purpose of being bedded by him. Never mind he’d tried to let her go. She’d refused. He would think that refusal was an acceptance of another sort...
He laughed, finishing the last of the buttons low on her spine. ‘Let’s just say you aren’t the first woman I’ve undressed, wet or otherwise.’
She supposed she’d deserved that with her leading question. The gown fell open. She could feel his gaze on her back, a sensation that was provocatively possessive and not without its own thrill. ‘Stand still,’ he murmured at her ear. ‘I’ll have to use my knife.’
His knife? That galvanised her into action. Gianna spun away from him, clutching her dress to her, her eyes rapidly scanning the room for a possible weapon, all sense of flirting, of wanting to lure him with sugar evaporating in the wake of self-preservation. ‘There is no need for knives, I assure you.’ She tried her best calming tones, the tones she used to reason with the count when he was irrational—which was nearly always. Surely she could handle one Englishman.
Gianna snatched up a ewer, brandishing it in self-defence as she edged towards the door. A knife flashed in his hand from some secret place on his person and she knew she was right to have gone on the defensive. Good lord, he’d been armed all along! What sort of man carried a weapon to a party? She’d traded drowning in the canal for being stabbed by a madman in hotel room, who was laughing.
The Englishman held out his arms in a gesture of peace, apparently having found great humour in the situation. ‘Put down the ewer, Gianna. The knife is for the laces. They’re in knots. I’m afraid there’s no saving them. Now, turn around and let me at them. Your bath is ready and you’re shaking.’
Hot embarrassment crept up her cheeks. She’d completely overreacted. But what else was she to think? It was easier to turn around than to let him see her blush. She’d let herself look foolish. ‘You find this funny?’ she scolded. She felt the slice of a sure blade through the sodden laces of her corset, felt the tight garment slide away, felt her body breathe, set free.
His hands closed over the caps of her shoulders, warm and firm against her chilled skin. ‘I think it’s funny that you believe I would go to all the trouble of dragging you out of the canal just to stab you a half hour later in my room.’ His fingers flexed gently against her skin, his mouth close to her ear. ‘What holds no humour for me is why a beautiful woman would have reason to think a man would do that.’
His body was just inches from hers. She could feel the heat of him through his wet clothes, feel the strength of him—it was there in the low rumble of his words, in the remembrance of the arm that had brought her to the water’s surface. This was a very different man than the count. She’d known it at the palazzo, but had not fully understood what it meant until now.
Where the count thrived on cruelty and force, this man did not. However, that mere discrepancy did not make him a saint. She had to be careful not to ascribe heroic attributes to him just because he’d dragged her out of the canal and hadn’t ravished her yet. He was still a gambler and he was a still a rogue—a rogue who was growing more appealing by the moment.
A shiver of a different sort swept through Gianna. She knew danger when she encountered it and it was standing right behind her. It wasn’t the knife in his hand that made him dangerous, it was his manners, his temptations.
He stepped back, releasing her. ‘Take your bath.’
Gianna turned to face him. He’d saved her tonight. He’d looked after her. How long had it been since anyone had done that? He was a complete stranger, someone who didn’t have to do any of those things and yet he had. She didn’t even know his name. She stretched a hand out. ‘You have my thanks, ah...?’ She waited for him to fill in the space left by her words.
A small smile twitched on his lips as he took her hand. ‘Are you asking me my name? It’s Nolan Gray.’
‘I’m trying to thank you, Mr Gray.’ She couldn’t resist a smile of her own, something warm unfurling in her stomach. She imagined he rather regularly had that effect on women. Once more she counselled caution. She didn’t want to like him. She just needed him to get through the next four weeks.
* * *
He just had to get through the night. He had a naked woman in his tub and no idea what to do with her, a most novel situation to be sure. Usually he knew exactly what to do with a naked woman in the tub, out of the tub, on the bed, off the bed, against the wall, out on the balcony with the moon overhead. He had to stop, this was starting to sound like an erotic prepositional exercise or bad poetry. Too bad his tutors had not aspired to such creative lengths—he might have done better in school.
Nolan stripped out of his clothes at last, glad to be rid of the damp and stench of the canal. He towelled dry his hair and slipped into his banyan, feeling warmer, cleaner already, but that raised another point of concern. What was she going to wear? Her gown was beyond use, wet and ruined. It was past midnight. There were no shops open and he didn’t know any shopkeepers to rouse. But he did know a friend... Brennan. Nolan grinned and hurried next door.
Brennan answered, half-dressed and less than half-sober. ‘Do you still have that nightgown, Bren? The one you just ordered.’
‘The one I ordered for my special lady,’ Brennan drawled his correction.
‘I need it, Bren.’ Nolan leaned against the doorjamb, his voice low. If Brennan was home this time of night he wasn’t alone and he didn’t want his business broadcast to all and sundry. ‘I have a situation.’
‘I have a situation, too, as it were.’ Brennan directed his eyes downward meaningfully where his robe gaped.
‘Please, she fell in the canal and has nothing to sleep in.’
Brennan raised a brow. ‘And that’s a problem how? I thought you screwed naked.’
‘Normally I do.’ Nolan stopped. What was he doing? He did not have to justify that to Brennan. Nolan rolled his eyes. One of the consequences of living in his friends’ pockets was that they knew everything about him, personal habits and all. He had no privacy left even when he had separate rooms. Nolan pushed a hand through his hair, striving for clarity. ‘It’s complicated, Bren. I won her in a card game, she fell out of the gondola, she’s in the tub right now.’ Striving and failing. Nolan blew out a breath. He could see the explanation didn’t help. He was flubbing this up miserably in his haste to get back to the room.
Brennan waved him off with a hand. ‘Enough, you’re making my head hurt. You can have the damn nightgown if you’ll just stop with all these details.’ Brennan retreated into the dark of his room and came back, a silky white item in one hand. ‘Just to be clear, I won’t want it back when you’re done.’
‘Thanks, I owe you one.’
Brennan laughed. ‘One nightgown, to be precise. I will want it replaced. Now, go to bed.’
Bed was an interesting proposition indeed given there was only the one in his suite and he’d not planned on sharing it with the lovely, mercurial Gianna. He’d also not planned on having her in his room, let alone his bed. Nolan stepped into the steamy bathing room, calling out his approach from the dressing screen that shielded the tub from any intruders. ‘Are you decent? I found you something to wear.’
He heard the water slosh, her voice momentarily flustered. ‘Toss it over the screen, I’ll be out in a minute.’
‘There’s no need to rush,’ Nolan called back, trying to sound cheerful. No need at all. He was still trying to figure out what to do with her, but before he could do that, he had to figure out what to make of her.
He draped the silky material over the screen. The evening hadn’t gone quite as anticipated. He was supposed to have won money, not a woman. But he’d had a plan for that, too. That woman was supposed to have embraced her freedom and left him at the pier. It was a nice, expedient option that should have satisfied them both. In the main room, Nolan poured himself a drink and went out on the balcony to think and to wait. He’d had one plan, but apparently, she’d had another, and that was cause for wonder.
Nolan leaned on the railing, his gaze going out across the dark waters as he sipped at the brandy, letting his thoughts come fast and logical: Was Gianna Minotti a fraud? Was she for real? Was she a little of both, part fact, part fiction? Perhaps of more immediate concern, what did she want badly enough to turn down her freedom and accompany an unknown man to a hotel room, an act that had obviously inspired at least a little fear in her?
There was a delicate cough behind him. He turned, preparing himself for the sight of Gianna Minotti in whatever passed for Brennan’s taste in nightwear. There would be no reason to overreact. This wasn’t his first woman in a nightgown or his first woman anything—he was way beyond firsts when it came to what happened in a bedroom.
His preparation was not enough. Thankfully, years of rote response came to his aid. ‘Will it suffice?’ The words came out of his mouth with little effort from him because the rest of him seemed tongue-tied. The pale-blue dress with its heavy adornments had not done her justice. It had, in fact, distracted the viewer with its opulence from the full onslaught of her beauty. But there was no distraction now.
Nolan’s eyes were riveted on her face, helped there by the simple classic lines of the gown, the thin unobtrusive straps at her shoulders that demanded no attention and the dark cloud of her hair hanging loose and damp at her shoulders, framing her face and those striking hazel eyes. Her face itself was ultimately feminine, at once managing to be compassionate without being soft or delicate, intelligent without being hard. A smart man, a man who wanted to understand her, would study that face for hours and recognise its layers, the complexities of her expressions. Only when that was mastered would he move on to study the rest of her body, shown to perfection in the simplicity of the white gown. Tonight he could not be that man.
Nolan felt his body, typically well trained to reserve its judgement until his mind was made up, stir with arousal. The gown flowed over her curves at the behest of her body, not of fashions. Where the blue gown had forced her to conform, this silk conformed to the wearer, flowing over the swell of her breast, the nip and flare of waist and hip. No wonder Brennan had been reluctant to part with it. The gown had been made by a magician.
‘It suffices, I’d say.’ She took a few steps forward to the cluster of furniture around the fireplace, the silk emphasising the sway of her hips, her mouth quirked in a wry smile that said she’d noted his interest. Damn. He hated being the transparent one. Usually, those roles were reversed. Usually... How many times had he thought of such contrasts tonight? The ‘usual’ held no power here. Nothing that had happened tonight had gone according to plan or prediction.
‘I see the tea has come.’ She sat on the curved sofa and prepared to pour, presiding over the porcelain like a naughty angel in her white gown, her hazel eyes looking preternaturally green against the paleness of her surroundings. ‘Perhaps you’d prefer something stronger?’ She gestured to the decanter on the sideboard, noting the half-empty glass in his hand. ‘I think I’d prefer a little of both after all the excitement tonight.’
Nolan brought the decanter over and sat down, one leg crossed over the other, and let her serve him. If women served tea in nightgowns like this more often, men might actually enjoy the event. He admired the way in which she had manoeuvred things. It was neatly done indeed, masterful even. Of course, he recognised her strategy. It was a trick he used often. To take charge of a situation, one merely had to find a task to perform and then incorporate others into the scheme by asking them questions. Suddenly, you were giving orders and people were looking to you for direction.
She refilled his glass and passed it to him before splashing a healthy amount into her teacup, slightly self-conscious for the first time now that there was no task to perform; no wager to watch, no canal to be hauled out of, no bath to take, no tea to serve. Their action-packed evening had come to a screeching halt and now it was just them and the original reason they were together to start with.
‘So, here we are.’’ Nolan drawled with lazy nonchalance, settling back deep in his chair. Despite his misgivings over her authenticity, he was starting to enjoy this. The next move was hers. What would his bold lady do next?
Chapter Five (#ulink_745dc22f-e2cd-5019-ace6-0ed4d3b2c2bd)
Here they were. In their nightclothes. Together. Gianna took a slow sip of the hot tea. There was a reason polite society didn’t encourage conversation in dishabille and this was it. Without the trappings of one’s wardrobe, one was entirely exposed in more than the obvious ways, although just the obvious exposure alone was enough to leave her feeling flustered and hot at a time when she need to be completely in control.
‘Here we are.’ She smiled, trying to give away none of her nerves. ‘I must thank you again for all you’ve done for me tonight.’ No, that was all wrong, it was too bland. She had to say something more than that if she meant to hold his attention. ‘The gown is lovely. I’m amazed you were able to find anything on such short notice.’ No, that was wrong, too. A man like him must have access to all types of female venues and females. She wondered where the gown had come from, which woman had sacrificed it for her, in return for what? What had the intriguing Nolan Gray promised in exchange?
‘I’m only sorry it didn’t come with a robe.’ Nolan Gray said easily, casually, from his chair, as if he talked with barely clad women over tea all the time. And he might. He’d made it clear in the bathing room undressing women was not a rare occurrence in his life.
‘Liar.’ Gianna caressed the word, a knowing half-smile on her lips. Women were easy for him. This was a man who would want to be flirted with, a man who would want a sensual challenge, something that differed from the norm of his usual experience. She let her eyes hold his over the rim of her tea cup. They were mesmerising eyes, not hard at all to look at with their quicksilver flecks, but hard to look away from. A woman could get lost in them and the decadent promises they held. ‘You’re not sorry at all.’ They were bold words from a bold woman, the sort of woman this man would find appealing.
Nolan Gray wasn’t the sort of man who had to win a woman in a card game. An expanse of well-muscled chest showed in the open vee of his robe, reminding her of the powerful body that had propelled her out of the water, reminding her, too, that she played with a certain intimate fire here. She’d initiated an assertive flirtation and he was very willing to respond in kind.
His eyes drifted over her in a deliberate slide of quicksilver on silk, his gaze making his unspoken thoughts evident: he wanted her. It was to be expected given the circumstances. She was his to want, won fair and square according to the rules of men. But there was more in that gaze than sheer male covetousness and that was what made her pulse race. Those thoughts conveyed possibilities, promises, of pleasure. ‘No, you’ve caught me out. I’m not sorry. You’re a beautiful woman. The blue dress hid you.’
‘The blue dress was worth a fortune,’ she countered, encouraging the flirtation. Flirting was a means to an end, part of her arsenal. If he wanted her, he would let her stay. She had to view that as progress. On the docks he’d been ready to let her go and that did not suit her purposes. But to get what she wanted from him, she’d have to tempt him beyond coy flirtation and who knew where that would end? Well, she knew where that would end—in his bed, with her taking one step closer to becoming her mother, one step closer to being dependent on men, the very thing she’d fought so hard against the count to avoid.
‘It’s too bad the count didn’t wager the dress instead, then.’ Nolan took a swallow of brandy. She followed that swallow down the strong length of his throat. Did she really have a choice in the short term if her long-term goals were to be met?
Gianna stopped her line of thought. How often had her mother said the same? She’d married the count based on that exact logic. She’d wanted respectability for her children, the kind that came cloaked in a title. And yet, despite that cautionary tale, Gianna couldn’t help but think that if she did have to sacrifice herself to the Englishman, then so be it. Was it wrong that part of her didn’t think it would be a terrible sacrifice if it came to that?
The man across from her was attractive with his grey eyes accented by the sweeping upper curve of his cheekbones. It made for an appealing combination of strength and approachability, drawing the eye up to the spill of water-dark hair pushed back from his forehead. His hair would be lighter once it dried, although right now it was the shade of walnuts. His hair had been the colour of sweet pralines in the ballroom. He was a finely made man, too. She’d already noticed how tall and lean-muscled he was and with the manners to go with the looks. To dance with him in a ballroom would be a dream...a dream she should not be entertaining given her circumstances. It would certainly have helped lessen his appeal if he’d been a boor.
‘Why do you suppose he chose to wager you and not the dress?’ Nolan was musing out loud, and she needed to pay attention. Listening was one of a courtesan’s most powerful weapons—the source of information.
‘He was angry with me,’ Gianna replied, not wanting to go into the details. If she was too messy, too complicated, or if he sensed an association with her could be potentially dangerous, he would be rid of her. Nolan raised a brow as if to suggest ‘angry’ didn’t quite explain why a man would wager his daughter in a card game.
She didn’t want to explain. She didn’t want his pity just yet and certainly not his rejection. That was what she’d have if she told him the whole sordid story. She’d tell him later perhaps if she was desperate. Pity could be a tool, too. Besides, telling the story exposed her hand more than she wanted. They might be drinking tea in their nightwear and he might have saved her from drowning but he was still a stranger. So much lay unknown between them. At the moment, she was operating off nothing more than her assumptions about his character.
‘More brandy?’ she offered. She rose with the decanter in hand to cross the short distance between them, but Nolan waved it away.
‘More answers.’ He set his glass down on the low table, pushing it away from him with a sense of finality. Gianna swallowed hard. Small talk was over.
It was time to be bold. She needed a distraction or he’d drag the entire story out of her. She would tell him when she was ready, when she knew she had him and he wouldn’t send her back. Until then, she needed to give him a reason to let her stay. Gianna put down the decanter and pulled off the stopper. She gave it a long, slow lick of her tongue, her eyes on Nolan, watching his reaction. ‘Perhaps we can think of something else to do with the brandy besides drink it.’ Her voice was husky and provocative, the implication clear.
His grey eyes went black at the fantasy she conjured. ‘What are you suggesting?’ His voice had become a husky growl. It was now or never. Gianna seized her courage. She could do this. She knew in theory what men wanted and how to deliver it, if not in practice. But truly, how hard could it be?
Gianna knelt at his knees in the small place between him and the tea table, careful to keep her eyes on his, never letting him guess the boldness was an act. ‘We can find something better to entertain ourselves with besides talk. After all, you didn’t win my conversation in a card game.’ She ran her hands up the insides of his thighs beneath his banyan, over the rough hair of his legs, and she knew the heady sensation of success.
Already his body was shifting, opening to accommodate her touch, his robe falling away to reveal all of him, his phallus starting its journey to arousal as her thumb met with its head, his tip rubbery and tender. She’d not thought it would feel so...vulnerable...when the rest of his body was so very hard. She closed her hand over the length of his shaft, feeling its heat, its pulsing life as it grew harder. She started to stroke.
His hand came down quick and fierce, shackling her wrist. ‘What the hell do you think you’re doing?’
‘Do you prefer something else?’ Gianna fired back, defensive in her doubt. Was she doing it wrong?
‘I’d prefer the truth.’ His grip was hard as he brought both of them to their feet. Standing nose to nose or rather nose to chest, she felt the whole force and strength of his presence. Had she misjudged him? Was there cruelty in him yet? Gianna tensed and waited.
‘You haven’t the faintest idea of what you’re doing, of what you’re playing with,’ he accused, and she felt her cheeks burn with shame. He had roused to her touch, her efforts couldn’t have been that far off the mark. Gianna willed herself not to look away from him as he continued his scold. She would not give him or any man the satisfaction of victory. Nolan’s eyes were hard, near-obsidian shards as he made his case. ‘At the palazzo you were not the least interested in sleeping with me. I believe your words were “take your hand off me”. That seems to have changed in a rather short time. Frankly, I find your about-face unbelievable. Perhaps we should try your resolve before this goes any further.’
It was all the warning she had. He seized her mouth in a bruising kiss that left her breathless and reeling from its onslaught, but there was no mistaking this kiss for anything other than what it was—a punishment, a proving ground.
Nolan dragged his mouth away, his eyes narrowed in flinty speculation. ‘That’s what I thought.’ He ran his hand across his mouth, and Gianna knew whatever test he had put to her she had failed. ‘A woman always kisses her truth. Now, why don’t you tell me how it is that a woman who didn’t want to be wagered turns down her freedom when it’s offered to her, especially when she’s not particularly interested in sleeping with me?’
Gianna gathered her dignity and looked him in the eye. She was losing him, not because she lacked competence in the arts of seduction, but because he saw through her, he knew her game and it dulled her one weapon. ‘I’m sure I don’t know what you mean.’
‘Before you oh, so conveniently fell into the canal you were about to say “this is where I stay”,’ he prompted, not believing her feint of ignorance. ‘Somewhere between the ballroom and the canal incident, you decided you didn’t want to be free of me.’
His meaning was evident. Anger surged. ‘You think I planned this? You think I wanted to fall into the canal?’
Her own accusation didn’t appear to stoke his temper. His gaze remained steady. He let go of her wrist and crossed his arms over his chest, entrenching. She recognised the signs. ‘There are those who would say you’ve done well for yourself tonight. You’re here, after all, in this sumptuous room. The question is why?’ His voice was a sensuous caution, reminding her that she toyed with a dangerous man in spite of the kindnesses he’d shown her. ‘What do you want so badly, Gianna, you’re willing to put your hand and no doubt eventually your mouth on a stranger’s cock?’
It would have been better to have simply called her a whore. His crass description of her efforts to bribe him into compliance put her over the edge. Whatever restraint she had left fled in the wake of her temper at full boil. She raised her hand and struck him hard across the face, across that beautifully curved sweeping cheekbone.
‘How dare you!’ But she knew how he dared. He dared because it was true. She’d been willing to do that much and more if need be and it shamed her. In those moments she’d become like her mother, the very life she was trying so hard to avoid—a life dependent on a man’s reactions to her charms.
Nolan stepped away from her, his body coiled but controlled. He didn’t even raise a hand to touch the red stain she’d left on his face. She envied him that reserve he could conjure at will. ‘I’m sorry if the truth stings, signorina,’ he said coldly. ‘Please excuse me. I find I’m not good company this evening. I’m going to find a nice stiff drink or two. Make free of the room. I will not be back tonight.’
He couldn’t leave! She was already regretting her actions. Didn’t she know by now violence solved nothing, it only made things worse? How quickly she’d sunk to the very depths she despised in the count. ‘You’re not dressed,’ she asserted hastily. In her anger she might have ruined everything. She couldn’t let him go with things like this. What had she been thinking to strike him? What if he sent for the count? She couldn’t go back.
Nolan’s hand stalled on the doorknob, and he gave her a wry smile. ‘For what I pay here, princess, they’d let me drink naked.’ Then he was gone, leaving her alone with a bed and a half-full decanter of brandy. It should be enough to numb the pain. Things would look brighter in the morning. They had to, because they looked impossibly dark right now.
Chapter Six (#ulink_1afde1e7-d882-52a6-a1c7-41a0db7807b3)
Oh, the agony! Nolan groaned, but the noise of it, the effort of it, only made the pain worse. His head was splitting like Zeus about to birth Athena. With a blind hand, he groped for the bedside table and the morning remedy he left there for occasions like this. His hand came up empty—no furniture, no magic morning. Why was that?
Nolan hazarded a peep out of the slit of one cautious eye. Ow! He shut it quickly and cursed. Who the hell had left the curtains open? The morning was not off to a good start and it was only sixty seconds old. If this was how the day was going to progress, he would stay in bed. Then he remembered why he couldn’t. For starters, he wasn’t even in a bed, but a chair and a deuced uncomfortable one at that. Second, this wasn’t his room. This was Hotel Danieli’s private club, with its large bay of windows looking out on to the canal. He was here because she was there—there being his perfectly appointed room with night-dark curtains the staff knew to keep drawn until noon and his miracle remedy against all nature of hangovers on his bedside table.
Nolan shifted, his body conflicted in its priorities. Did it stay still, to dull the ache in his head, or give in to the urge to stretch and relieve the stiffness of having passed out in a club chair hours ago? His body opted to move. That was a mistake. He regretted moving instantly, then regretted having drunk so much brandy. Well, it hadn’t entirely been brandy. There’d been some wine, too. This was all her fault, every aching, throbbing body part of it. The evening in its entirety flooded back in head-splitting flashes; the card game, the gondola, the canal—oh, Lord, the canal—he still carried a faint whiff of it on his skin—and the girl who had ruined everything, even his solution to save them both from further complication.
He’d offered her freedom from the agreement. She was supposed to have taken it and left him at the pier—dry and ready to move forward with the next step of his plans. It was a nice expedient option that should have satisfied them both. Apparently she had a different option in mind—one that involved falling into the canal. Even now, he wasn’t sure if she’d done it on purpose. It had been an enormous chance to take on her part in a dress weighted down by pearls.
That wasn’t the only thing he wasn’t sure about. Was she really a virgin or had the count lied about that, too? It was rather hard to believe and yet he couldn’t rule it out as truth. Nolan groaned again, this time from the realisation of what he’d done based on accepting the count’s word at face value. What if he’d been wrong to trust her? If she had manipulated everything, it meant he’d just left a very experienced con artist alone in his room with all of his winnings. Nolan forced himself into an upright position, fighting hard to ignore the spinning room and the stab of pain. He had to get upstairs.
It was an absolute labour of Hercules to pull himself up the grand staircase in his dressing gown in front of bright-eyed tourists heading out to see the sights. It wasn’t the dressing gown that bothered him. If he’d been in better spirits, he’d have made a game out of it, bowing and nodding to the ladies as if he were fully clothed. But he was in no mood for games. His head ached, his stomach roiled on the verge of nausea and it was suitable punishment for what he’d done. Had he let her manipulate him or was she simply that good and he hadn’t seen it coming, he who prided himself on being a student of human nature?
Nolan ran through the progression of events. She’d been trying to seduce him, which had been an obvious if enjoyable ploy. He recalled with clarity the feel of her warm hand on his very responsive cock. If she’d been a different sort of woman in different circumstances, he would have taken her generous offer. But he’d been wary of her motives. When seduction had failed, she’d opted for a quarrel. In hindsight, he could see how that would work to her advantage. Perhaps she had intended to blind him with anger, knowing he’d storm out, maybe knowing, too, that a man who had bothered to drag her out of the canal, run her a hot bath and find her a nightgown wasn’t going to throw her out after all that trouble.
Nolan fumbled for the key in his dressing-robe pocket and fitted it to the lock. He held his breath. This was the moment of truth. He opened the door to his room. The front room was empty except for the abandoned tea set and his stomach dropped. He strode into the bedroom, fearing the worst—that she was gone and his money with her. He stopped in the doorway and smiled, a big, wide smile that hurt his head. Right now, he didn’t care. The pain was worth it.
Gianna Minotti lay sprawled face down on his bed, the silk nightgown bunched up high on her thighs, revealing long, slim legs and a glimpse of rounded buttock. Her hair was a glorious tangled mop over her face. Was that a small trail of drool at her mouth? One hand trailed limply over the bed. Nolan followed it down to the empty glass on the floor just beyond her fingertips.
His eyes darted to the nightstand and the nearly empty decanter. She’d had the same idea as he. Chances were, she’d get the same results. His magic morning was still at the bedside, too. He grabbed up the glass and drank, making sure to save some for her. She was going to need it. Nolan fought back the urge to laugh as he headed for the bath. It was true. Misery loved company. He was feeling better already.
* * *
There was a man singing in the bathroom and she just wanted him to stop! Gianna moaned and rolled over. It was a bad idea, but obviously just one of many, the brandy having been the first bad idea. What had possessed her to imbibe like that? Then she remembered. Him. This was all his fault. Sort of. At the moment, she couldn’t remember exactly why it was his fault. Oh, yes, he’d won her in a card game. Not her specifically, but her maidenhead. Which he hadn’t claimed, yet, proving the brandy hadn’t accomplished anything except for giving her a monstrous headache.
The door to the bathing room opened, and she cracked one eye, then two. If she had to wake up with a pounding head there were worse sights to wake up to. Nolan Gray emerged from the steam, wrapping a white towel around his waist, water dripping from his hair. His singing stopped when he saw her but he didn’t stop smiling. ‘Buongiorno,signorina. How is your head?’
The smiling, singing bastard knew exactly how her head felt—she could see the mischief in his eyes. Gianna reached for a pillow, intending to throw it at him. The effort was too much for her body. Her stomach rebelled, the world swam and spun in front of her abruptly upright head. She went hot, then cold, entirely out of control of her body. Oh, no! She couldn’t stop it. Her throat made a panicked sound. Nolan was there, kneeling beside her, a chamber pot at the ready, his hand sweeping back her hair just in time.
She retched most thoroughly not once but twice, her stomach spilling its contents into the chamber pot. It was humiliating and healing all at once. Realising that somehow made it even more mortifying because, when the wave of nausea passed, she was glad she’d done it. Casting up accounts had been exactly what she’d needed.
‘Better?’ Nolan brought a wet washcloth and helped her with her face. The cold water felt refreshing on her skin. She lay back against the bed pillows, feeling drained, but immensely improved. ‘If I could get rid of the pounding in my head, I would be at a hundred per cent.’ She managed a smile, but it was hard considering she’d just thrown up in front of a man dressed in a towel—a man who had already fished her out of the canal and tried to save her from the count’s reckless wager.
He had an answer for that, too. ‘Drink this. It will help your head.’ He passed her a half-filled glass filled with a greenish liquid.
She sniffed and wrinkled her brow. ‘What is it?’
‘My secret recipe for mornings like these.’ He chuckled at her reticence. ‘You can live with the headache or you can try it. I’ve already had mine and look at me.’ He held his arms wide. Look at him indeed. It was hard not to. He was as well made as the glimpses last night had purported. Lean muscles defined his arms and chest beneath the lingering tan of his skin. It was not a deep tan, of course, they were too far into the winter for that, but he had been tan at one point. It made her wonder what he’d been doing. Cards were usually an indoor pursuit, in her experience. It was nice to think he might be more than a gambler.
Gianna gave him a dubious look and downed the glass. She cringed at the taste and swallowed. ‘This had better work.’
‘It will work. It tastes too awful not to.’ He laughed and rummaged in the drawers of the bureau and tossed her a shirt. ‘You can put this on until we can find you something better to wear. I’ll dress in the other room. Come out when you’re decent. Breakfast will be here soon. I have it delivered every day at noon.’
Breakfast? Decent? She was sceptical of both ideas, but Nolan merely laughed at her frown as he gathered up clothes. ‘Nothing fancy, just toast and coffee,’ he assured her. ‘It will help, too, you’ll see.’
Gianna held the shirt against her. She was sceptical of more than breakfast. They had not parted on good terms last night. He’d accused her of deliberately falling into the canal, and she had slapped him. ‘Why are you doing this? Why are you being so nice?’
Nolan shrugged. ‘Does there have to be a reason? Maybe I’m feeling grateful that my hangover is behind me. It is a glorious feeling to be restored to health, don’t you agree?’ The last was added rather pointedly.
Gianna blushed, but she was not diverted. ‘Maybe it’s more than that.’
‘Maybe,’ Nolan drawled, letting his eyes roam over her. ‘I’m just glad to find you’re still here and that you haven’t robbed me blind. You knew exactly how much I’d won and where it was at.’
‘You insult me.’ She must be feeling better. Her temper stirred a little, a sure sign she was recovering her spirit. It stung that he still didn’t believe she was innocent in all this, that she’d had no part in the wager, no designs to steal from him and return to the count.
‘No,’ Nolan corrected, tossing the words over his shoulder as he exited to the other room. ‘I honour you with the truth. In cases like this, I find it’s best to know where we stand with one another.’
Ah, they were not so dissimilar. They both believed one caught more flies with sugar than vinegar. He was flattering her. Not with words, necessarily. In fact, he was purposely using his words to do the exact opposite in the hopes that she wouldn’t notice. But she’d been in the world of men too long. She knew better. He was flattering her with actions, luring her trust with nightgowns and shirts; hot baths and tea trays; miracle headache cures and timely placement of chamber pots. Do not like him, she admonished, slipping out of the nightgown and folding it carefully before placing it in a drawer.
Gianna slipped her arms into the sleeves of the shirt. The garment was too big, of course. The sleeves had to be rolled up and it fell nearly to her knees. But it was clean and soft against her skin the way only expensive linen could be. She breathed deeply. The shirt smelled good, like him, she realised. It matched the scent that had trailed out of the bathing room with him; sandalwood with the faintest hints of patchouli. She drew another deep breath and knew she had to be careful.
He was a worthy opponent at a time when she needed a more naïve one. Nolan Gray did nothing without a motive. Even this act of dressing her in his shirt was an act of intimacy designed to draw her closer, designed to create the illusion of a bond between them. He wants you to like him, came the thought. She played a question-and-answer game with herself as she fastened the shirt.
Why? Last night he’d wanted to be rid of her.
Because friends tell one another their secrets.
In his eyes, what was her secret?
Answer: he wanted to know why she didn’t want to leave when she hadn’t wanted to come in the first place.
Gianna paused, hesitating before picking up the brush laid out on the dresser. He wouldn’t mind. He’d want her to use it, one more act of kindness to bind her to him. She dragged the brush through her tangles, feeling more in charge with each brushstroke, more like herself. Regardless of what anyone said, appearances mattered, even when one was only wearing a shirt, or perhaps especially when one was wearing only a shirt. It was already noon and the clock was ticking. How much time did she have before her freedom ran out?
There were voices in the other room and the clatter of dishes. Breakfast was here. She couldn’t hide in the bedroom any longer. It was time to go out and beard the proverbial lion in his den. For that she needed a strategy, or, better yet, she’d just borrow his tactics. He wanted her to like him. Was that such a bad idea? Wouldn’t she, too, be served by the concept of liking? Maybe being friends was the preferred strategy here. After all, friends did things for one another and there were things she needed doing before she could leave Venice, before she could truly be free. Who better to do them for her than her new friend, Nolan Gray?
Be careful, her conscience whispered, that you don’t do this because it’s easy. You want to like him and this gives you an excuse. This was your mother’s downfall, she liked attractive men and they all failed her in the end. Nolan Gray might have fished you out of the canal, but he also won you in a card game. How good could a man be who’d entertain such a wager? That was the problem. She didn’t know. But at the moment he was all she had. She did feel a twinge of guilt over what she meant to do. But if he was a gambler, he’d understand. A girl had to use her resources and take her chances where she found them.
The smell of coffee greeted her as she stepped into the other room, feeling conspicuous in Nolan’s shirt when he was fully attired in shirt and waistcoat, breeches and boots. In truth, the shirt covered far more of her than the nightgown had, but then, the playing field had been more equitable when they’d both been in nightwear. But Nolan rose, playing the gentleman, only his eyes betraying his appreciation of her apparel. He was good at hiding his emotions.
‘Coffee?’ He poured her a cup and passed it to her with a smile. ‘There’s toast and butter, a pot of jam, if you like. Help yourself.’ He’d left the sofa empty for her, perhaps anticipating the difficulties of sitting in a shirt. She ended curled up on that sofa, her legs tucked under her, the shirttails tucked modestly about her, and a plate of toast balanced on her lap.
It was a cosy position and she was struck by the domestic tranquillity of their breakfast. Nearby, flames popped occasionally in the fireplace. Nolan sat easy in his chair, one booted leg crossed over the other, his own plate balanced on a knee. Beyond him the light of the grey day filtered through the windows. It was a perfect day for staying inside. If they’d been lovers, perhaps they would have. But Nolan’s attire suggested he at least had other plans.
She took a bite of toast smothered in jam, aware of him studying her. She readied herself. He was going to launch his next salvo. But when it came it wasn’t the question she’d expected.
Nolan took a swallow of coffee and said with all the casualness of someone who was asking about the weather, ‘So, what kind of man sells his daughter’s virginity? And don’t say a desperate one because I already know that.’
Chapter Seven (#ulink_31f6104b-5f82-5fdd-9a35-5af8ecae3bfa)
‘What kind of man buys it?’ she countered, fixing him with her brave hazel gaze. This woman backed down from nothing. She was as confident sitting on the sofa in his borrowed shirt as she was in Venice’s finest ballrooms in a gown worth a fortune. It might be said that clothes made the man. In this case, it was confidence that made the woman. She wore it well, but Nolan was hardly about to come undone over a direct gaze and one uncomfortable question. He was far too experienced for that.
‘Oh, no, you don’t.’ Nolan set aside his plate and took the offensive. Part of him was glad to see she was willing to put up a fight. Still, she would find he was not as easily played as all that. ‘You do not get to answer a question with a question and you absolutely do not get to make me the villain in this scenario.’
‘There can be more than one villain,’ she replied coolly.
‘There may be, but they are not me. I was your best choice at that table.’
‘Were you? That’s an arrogant statement.’
‘I did not ravish you. You are still in possession of your virginity,’ Nolan pointed out, enumerating his evidence on his fingers. ‘I doubt the other men at the table would have allowed you to keep it. Secondly, and more importantly, you are still in possession of the choice regarding who to give that particular feminine jewel to. Thirdly, I offered to set you free of the wager.’ He was well aware she had artfully manoeuvred him into defending himself. This was not what he wanted to discuss. He wanted to discuss the count and whatever arrangement she had with that blackguard.
She arched a dark eyebrow over her coffee, unimpressed with his accomplishments. ‘You are a veritable saint.’
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Bronwyn Scott
‘All gamblers are alike in luck…’Although when Nolan Gray enters a high-stakes game in Venice, facing a ruthless opponent, he’ll need more than just luck. He can’t start losing now…especially when the virginity of the enthralling Gianna Minotti hangs in the balance!Fate is on his side, and Nolan seizes victory. But leaving in a gondola with Gianna and not collecting on his tantalising prize pushes Nolan to his limits! Can he help her claim her freedom when really he wants to claim her for his own?Rakes on TourOutrageous hell-raisers let loose in Europe!
RAKES ON TOUR
Outrageous hell-raisers let loose in Europe!
When London’s most notorious rakes embark on a Grand Tour they set female hearts aflutter all across Europe!
The exploits of these British rogues might be the stuff of legend, but on this adventure of a lifetime will they finally meet the women strong enough to tame their wicked ways?
Read Haviland North’s story in:
Rake Most Likely to Rebel Already available
Read Archer Crawford’s story in:
Rake Most Likely to Thrill Already available
Read Nolan Gray’s story in:
Rake Most Likely to Seduce Available now
and watch for Brennan Carr’s story:
Rake Most Likely to Sin Coming March 2016!
Author Note (#ulink_84fda59b-ab7e-5124-ad85-5f765db2c4f0)
I have a secret: Venice wasn’t supposed to be Nolan’s story. All through my planning of the mini-series it was supposed to be Brennan’s. But when the gentlemen arrived it didn’t work out that way. It didn’t take long to see that Venice suited Nolan much better—the parties, the card games, and the dark edge that haunts the periphery of Carnevale.
For the background to Nolan’s story I read John Ruskin’s original journals on Venice from his visit in the 1840s. They are fascinating and eerily predictive of Venice’s fate. I also consulted John Julius Norwich’s A History of Venice, for those of you looking to do some reading on the city.
I was fortunate enough to stop in Venice the summer before writing Nolan’s story, to reacquaint myself with the beautiful city. Many of you write and tell me you like to ‘travel’ in my stories when you can’t get out and travel yourself, so this one’s for you. Whether you’ve been to Venice in person, or in your dreams, I hope you enjoy Nolan’s Venetian vacation.
Stop by my blog at bronwynswriting.blogspot.com (http://bronwynswriting.blogspot.com) to share your own Venetian stories.
Or visit my web page at bronwynnscott.com (http://bronwynnscott.com).
Rake Most Likely to Seduce
Bronwyn Scott
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
BRONWYN SCOTT is a communications instructor at Pierce College in the United States, and is the proud mother of three wonderful children (one boy and two girls). When she’s not teaching or writing she enjoys playing the piano, travelling—especially to Florence, Italy—and studying history and foreign languages. Readers can stay in touch on Bronwyn’s website, bronwynnscott.com (http://bronwynnscott.com), or at her blog, bronwynswriting.blogspot.com (http://bronwynswriting.blogspot.com). She loves to hear from readers.
For Mike, Rebecca and Madison, who shared the second half of our Grand Tour with us. Thanks for sharing nine nights of dinners with us. Meeting you was the highlight of the trip.
Contents
Cover (#u371bcf63-7612-5e6a-a56a-cbbb2a1c1b98)
Introduction (#uf70c6aae-ab11-5600-8925-64d229ac0cb6)
Author Note (#uf1a69f74-e69a-5595-915c-04848ec112c6)
Title Page (#ud5f34ca1-121e-501a-88ab-da49252ea357)
About the Author (#u1d39b93d-500e-5614-a18a-e25ef3492349)
Dedication (#u5196a453-bb5b-5009-90aa-935378e2e4fc)
Chapter One (#u1e00746b-844a-5cdf-88dd-05254cd0994e)
Chapter Two (#u21ae614f-238a-5126-9f09-dc1784fbc510)
Chapter Three (#ue35a58b8-83dc-5827-8608-cb2c7528a273)
Chapter Four (#u8d0df465-143a-568b-a5d6-c96c31dcad32)
Chapter Five (#u25175b62-3b03-5436-a1b8-d5d7a3929f8f)
Chapter Six (#ub0961cfc-08cf-5498-8bcb-535e509804c8)
Chapter Seven (#ud9f2ecae-7558-5636-9878-a7838aad1da4)
Chapter Eight (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Nine (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Ten (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eleven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twelve (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Thirteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Fourteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Fifteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Sixteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Seventeen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eighteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Nineteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty-One (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty-Two (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty-Three (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty-Four (#litres_trial_promo)
Epilogue (#litres_trial_promo)
Extract (#litres_trial_promo)
Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter One (#ulink_025b0d68-375c-577c-a5d4-116b4eb32d99)
The Antwerp Hotel, Dover—March 1835
‘You bastard! No one has that kind of luck!’ The man across the table from Nolan Gray snarled in disbelief. ‘If you lay down another ace, I’ll...’
‘What? You’ll slice me from side to side? Shoot me where I sit?’ Nolan Gray flipped the offending card on to the table—another ace indeed—with a nonchalance that suggested threats to his bodily well-being were a common occurrence when it came to cards and late nights.
The man half rose, a menacing hulk looming over the table. He was fully provoked by his evening’s losses and Nolan’s insouciance. ‘When a fellow has the streak you’ve had, it isn’t called luck any more. It’s called something else.’ He sneered, ready to leap the table for Nolan’s throat.
‘What do you call it?’ Nolan leaned back in his chair, refusing to give the man the satisfaction of standing. He took his opponent’s measure through alert eyes. The man outweighed him by two stone. A fight wouldn’t be fair, but it wouldn’t come to that, either because the man was nothing more than a bully or because there’d be weapons drawn before fists. Nolan had seen the type before, he just hadn’t bargained on seeing that sort tonight. He should have known better. This was Dover, not an elegant London gambling club where gentlemen had their codes.
The man growled. ‘You know what I call it.’ He waved a hand at the other two men seated with them. ‘You know what we all call it.’
Poor choice of allies, Nolan thought. The other two at the table didn’t look as committed to the conflict. Then again, they hadn’t lost as much. ‘No, I’m afraid I don’t. Care to spell it out for me?’ Nolan pushed, wanting to see how far the man would dare to go. Further than Nolan had thought. He had just a moment’s warning.
The man leapt the table, but Nolan was faster. A flick of his wrist and the slim handle of a blade slipped into his hand from the hidden sheath in his sleeve. He brought the blade up under the man’s chin, using the man’s own momentum against him. If he wanted to avert further trouble, now was the time for a show of force. The others at the table discreetly pushed back their chairs, making it clear they wanted no part of this.
‘Are you calling me a cheat?’ Nolan asked coolly. He didn’t have time for this. Where was Archer? He’d been right here a moment ago and goodness knew Nolan could use some support right about now. Surely Archer hadn’t left without him. They were supposed to meet Haviland and Brennan at the dock at an ungodly hour for their boat across the Channel.
It had hardly made sense to go to bed just to get back up, so he’d stayed awake. All bloody night. And look what it got him: the local Dover card sharp on the brink of calling him out; a duel his last night in England. Haviland would kill him if he was late and they missed the boat.
The man’s chin went up a fraction either in defiance or an attempt to avoid the pricking of Nolan’s blade. ‘Damn right I’m calling you a cheat.’
‘And I’m calling you a poor loser,’ Nolan answered with equal vehemence. This wasn’t the first time this had happened. Gambling had become tedious over the years: play, win a little, then win obscenely, duel, repeat. He hoped the French with their rumoured reputation for obsessive gambling proved to be better sports than his countrymen when it came to his flair with the cards. ‘Shall we settle this like gentlemen somewhere or will you retract your comment?’ He had to be at the docks in under an hour. Through the long windows of the hotel, he could see a coach draw up to the kerb—his coach. Perhaps he could squeeze in a duel if he was fast enough. Or maybe he should just make a run for it, although he hated the thought of letting this man get away with calling him names he didn’t deserve. He’d counted those cards fair and square. Having a sharp mind was no crime.
They were starting to draw a crowd, even at four o’clock in the morning. Workers who rose with the city were coming into the hotel for their early morning shifts and deliveries. Wasn’t this what he wanted to avoid? Being conspicuous? Scandal had driven him out of London, his father finally appalled by his son’s level of notoriety.
Nolan lowered the knife and gave the man a shove, sending him sprawling back over the table. He tossed him a look of disgust, scraping his winnings into his coat pocket. ‘You aren’t worth it.’ The sooner he was out of England, the better, but this was hardly the note he wanted to leave on. At least it was unlikely rumour would get back to his father that his son had been involved in a near duel just moments before his ship left. The Antwerp Hotel was hardly his father’s environs.
He’d nearly reached the door when a sixth sense alerted him. The bastard hadn’t stayed down, hadn’t recognised mercy when it was meted out. Nolan whirled with a shout, blade flashing. He caught the glint of a pistol barrel in the light of the hotel lobby’s chandelier not yet doused for the oncoming day. Without hesitation, he let his knife fly, straight into the man’s shoulder. The pistol clattered to the ground. The clerk behind the desk gasped in disbelief. ‘Mr Gray, this is a decent establishment!’
‘He started it!’ Nolan retorted. ‘He’s not hurt too badly.’ Nolan had been careful with his aim—too careful. There was no question of retrieving the knife. The man lurched forward, his adrenaline overriding his pain for the moment. Later there would be plenty of that. It was time for a getaway. The clerk would call the watch and there would be questions.
Nolan raced out into the dark courtyard, spotting Archer coming towards him in the darkness from the stables. That was to be expected. Archer loved horses more than humans. ‘Archer, old chap! We’ve got to go!’ Nolan seized his arm without stopping and dragged him towards the waiting coach, his words coming fast, well aware his pursuer had stumbled out of the hotel. ‘Don’t look now, but that angry man behind us thinks I cheated. He has a gun and my good knife. It’s in his shoulder, but I think he shoots with both—hands, that is. It wouldn’t make sense the other way.’ Nolan pulled open the coach door and they tumbled in, the coach lurching to a start before the door was even shut.
‘Ah! A clean getaway.’ Nolan sank back against the seat, a satisfied grin on his face.
‘It doesn’t always have to be a “getaway”. Sometimes we can exit a building like normal people.’ Archer straightened the cuffs of his coat and gave Nolan a scolding look.
‘It was fairly normal,’ Nolan protested.
‘You left a knife embedded in a man’s shoulder, not exactly the most discreet of departures. You got away in the nick of time.’
Nolan merely grinned, unfazed by the scolding. If he had been discreet, he would have stopped playing two hours ago. The other players could have respectably quit the table, their pride and at least some money intact. ‘Speaking of time, do you think Haviland is at the docks yet?’ They were scheduled to meet two friends at the boat this morning to begin their Grand Tour. ‘I’ll wager you five pounds Haviland is there.’
Archer laughed. ‘At this hour? He’s not there. Everything was loaded last night. There’s no reason for him to be early. Besides, he has to drag Brennan’s sorry self out of bed. That will slow him down.’ He and Haviland had known each other since Eton. Haviland was notoriously prompt, but he wouldn’t be early and Brennan was always late.
‘Easiest five pounds I’ll ever make. I bet he’s already there, pacing like a lion, and he’s got his fencing case with him. He won’t let it out of his sight.’ Then, because he couldn’t refuse the goad, ‘Kind of like my knife.’ But Archer hadn’t heard. His friend had leaned back and closed his eyes.
Nolan was too alert to doze. He thought about his five pounds. They would indeed be easy winnings, but Archer could afford it. He looked out the window. Haviland was already there, he’d wager more than five pounds on that truth. Archer might be Haviland North’s best friend, but Nolan knew people and Haviland was a warrior. He wouldn’t be parted from his weapons of choice. Besides, Haviland was anxious to be off. Nolan wasn’t sure what demons were driving Haviland, but they were driving hard and fast, as odd as the notion was.
To all appearances, Haviland North’s life was perfect; he was rich, in line for a choice title and endowed with extraordinary good looks. Haviland had it all. And yet, he couldn’t leave England fast enough. He would have been there an hour ago watching them load the carriages even if the trunks had all been stowed last night.
A movement outside the window grabbed his gaze. He squinted and rubbed a circle on the window for a better view. For a moment he thought they’d been followed. Was that his man outside? But, no, this was no man. He nudged Archer with a boot. ‘Care to explain why a horse is following us?’
Archer mumbled, ‘I sort of rescued him this morning.’
‘You abandoned me for a horse? I could have been killed,’ Nolan exclaimed.
‘And yet it was your knife in his shoulder. You were doing fine on your own,’ Archer replied drily, moving his gaze to the window.
The drive to the docks was short despite the foggy dawn, and the horse was still with them, running alongside the carriage. Nolan clambered down from the coach, letting Archer deal with the horse. He sighted a tall, lone figure on the docks and let out a whoop, calling to Archer, ‘What did I tell you? There he is. I win! Look at that, he’s even got his case with him.’
Haviland strode towards them and Nolan clasped him affectionately on the shoulder. ‘Good morning, Old Man. Is everything loaded to your satisfaction? I told Archer you’d be here overseeing.’
Haviland laughed. ‘You know me too well, the coaches went on an hour ago.’ Nolan was glad Haviland was handling the details. If it had been up to him, he’d simply have packed a trunk, jumped on board a ship and left everything on the other side up to fate. He was far more spontaneous than Haviland and Archer. It was the one gift of having to live an imperfect life. He’d learned early to be one step ahead of the blow so that when it fell, he was miles away.
The other benefit in not having an ideal family life was that he had nothing to live up to, not like Haviland, who was going to inherit the Englishman’s perception of Heaven on Earth, or Archer, whose family owned the most successful and expensive stud farm in Newmarket—for fun. Yes, they’d inherit perfection but they’d also have to spend their lives maintaining it for future generations. That was a lot of pressure.
He had no such pressure to conform to family tradition. The only perfection he’d inherited was his memory. He could count cards, three to four decks’ worth if he had to, and he could calculate odds. That inheritance was quite portable. Of course, he’d inherited plenty of imperfections along with it. Those were in no short supply, starting with a puritanical father who firmly believed in beating excellence into his children at all costs and ended with the reality that choice created: his family hadn’t seen each other in ten years. As soon as he and his brother had come of age, they’d scattered just as they had in the summers home from school—they’d never actually come home from school. They’d always arranged to spend the summers with friends. School might not have been intellectually edifying to him, but Nolan had found it freeing in other ways. He’d met Haviland, after all, and it had been the saving of him.
Archer was ribbing Haviland about keeping his case with him when Nolan’s thoughts re-engaged the conversation. ‘I told you that, too. I know these things, I’m a student of human nature.’ He laughed.
‘Too bad you couldn’t study that at Oxford,’ Archer joked. ‘You might have got better marks.’
Nolan laughed. He and Archer had been sparring for years. They had each other’s measure. When he hadn’t been spending summers with Haviland, he’d been spending them with Archer. ‘What can I say? It’s true. You two were the scholars, not me and Brennan.’ Nolan looked around, realising the absence of their fourth member. ‘Is Brennan here yet?’ Time was getting dear.
‘No.’ Haviland shook his head. ‘Did you expect him to be? Scholar of human nature that you are.’ He ribbed.
Nolan gave Haviland a playful shove. ‘A scholar of human nature, yes, a psychic, no.’ He grinned. He was looking forward to this trip more than he realised, the four of them back together again. It would be like old times. Indeed, they saw each other in London during the Season, but it wasn’t the same. The four of them were never all together at once. Archer was always in Newmarket these days. It was either he and Brennan or he and Haviland. Even then it was usually just for drinks at the club or a quick greeting at a ball.
All of them were approaching thirty, that most important age for men of their birth, when they were expected to marry and settle down. This trip might very well be their last time together as bachelors unencumbered by the responsibility of wives and children. Haviland would marry—it had already been arranged. Archer would follow. A man who loved breeding horses would surely love to breed his own children. As for Brennan? It would depend on who would have him on a more permanent basis. He was probably with a woman right now.
The captain of the vessel approached and urged them to board, making it clear he would not wait for the rest of their party. Haviland blew out a breath after the captain left, blaming himself for Brennan’s tardiness. ‘I should have stayed with him.’
Nolan murmured something encouraging. Brennan would be here. He had to be. Brennan was always late, always on the verge of trouble. Not too unlike himself. He was just better prepared for it. Brennan never saw it coming until it was too late. Perhaps that was why he liked Brennan, they were kindred spirits of a sort. They both had messy, imperfect lives. They both lived in the moment. Brennan wasn’t a planner and that was certainly working against him this morning. Nolan could imagine him oversleeping in some woman’s bed only to wake too late and realise he’d missed the boat.
Waiting was a luxury they couldn’t afford. It wasn’t an issue of just catching another boat. Channel crossings didn’t run on schedules, they ran on the weather. Nolan knew they were lucky their own crossing today was proceeding like clockwork. He opted to keep spirits up. He clapped a hand on Archer’s back as the three of them moved towards the boat. ‘I’ll wager Brennan misses the boat,’ he announced with forced joviality. ‘Archer, are you in? If I’m wrong, you can win back your losses.’ Please let me be wrong. He had every hope Brennan would come dashing up at the last minute.
They took up positions at the rail facing the dock. Nolan knew they were all hoping for a glimpse of their errant companion, but time was slipping away. He started at the sound of chains in motion. ‘They’re pulling the anchor. He’s not going to make it,’ Nolan said quietly, leaning on his arms. ‘Dammit! I didn’t want to win that bet.’ He exchanged glances with Haviland and Archer as the boat slowly nudged away from the dock. The trip was off to an ominous start.
Then he saw it—commotion on the pier, a figure racing towards them, shirttails flapping. Suddenly, Haviland was shouting, ‘It’s him, it’s Brennan!’ And he wasn’t alone. Nolan could make out two men behind him, one of them armed as they gave very hearty chase. Whoever they were, they meant business.
Haviland moved first, sprinting towards the back of the boat. Nolan stayed rooted where he was, his eyes focused on something else moving behind the men, something dark and swift. Next to him, Archer made it out first. ‘My horse!’
Nolan and Archer thundered down the length of the boat behind Haviland who was waving his arms and shouting commands to Brennan. Impossible commands, really, such as ‘jump’ and ‘don’t jump here, it’s too wide, jump at the back of the boat where it hasn’t left the dock yet. Hurry!’
It was insanity, by the time they reached the stern, even that part of the boat had left a gap between the dock and the deck. Brennan would never make the jump. If Brennan missed... There was no time to contemplate the consequences. ‘The horse, Archer, look!’ Nolan shouted. The bay had come up alongside Brennan, matching his stride to the running man.
Archer took the idea from there, cupping his hands around his mouth. ‘Get on the horse, Bren! Jump him!’
Nolan felt the moment suspend itself in time. He watched Brennan grab the mane and swing himself up bareback. It would be a mad jump even with stirrups and a saddle. But Brennan was an excellent rider, as good as Archer and far more reckless.
The horse leapt.
And landed. On its knees, on the deck.
Time sped up again. He and Archer grappled for the reins, trying to keep the horse calm. Haviland wrestled Brennan off the downed horse. Nolan glanced back at the shore. The two men in pursuit were forced to give up their efforts, having reached the edge of the pier. One of them raised his gun. Nolan hit the deck with Archer and the horse just as Brennan shoved Haviland to the ground. The bullet whined harmlessly overhead, but, dear lord, it had been a near thing. A second or two would have made a tragic difference. If Brennan hadn’t pushed Haviland down...
Nolan’s eyes narrowed in speculation. Deuce take it! Brennan had suspected they would fire. What kind of trouble had he got himself into this time? Haviland was already asking those questions as the group picked themselves up from the deck and brushed off their clothes. Archer marched the horse off to temporary stabling and Brennan was all smiles as he tucked in his shirttails despite Haviland’s scolding. Definitely a woman, then. It was usually a woman with Brennan.
Clothing settled and greetings exchanged, Nolan drawled his question. ‘So the real issue isn’t where you’ve been, but was she worth it?’
Brennan’s blue eyes were merry, his face splitting into a wide, satisfied grin as the wind ruffled his auburn hair. He laughed up at the sky and Nolan knew the answer before he even said it. ‘Always, Nol, always.’
Nolan grinned, too. The crisis was past. The future lay spread out before them. It would be a while before he saw England again and that was fine with him. Deep down, he wondered if he’d ever see it again and was not surprised to discover he wouldn’t mind if he didn’t. Grand Tours took years and all he had was time.
Chapter Two (#ulink_ec91dbca-26c3-5985-ad5d-e2b23df5eb1a)
Venice, Italy—winter 1836
All gamblers are alike in luck. They know the exhilaration of dice rattling in boxes, the adrenaline fuelled by hot tables, the decadent thrill of hinging everything on the turn of a card and when that card favours them, they know a surge of elation so great they become immortal gods in the moment of victory. But no two gamblers are alike in their fall. From the moment the cards desert them, to the moment they should have walked away and didn’t, gamblers are always unlucky alone.
Nolan Gray knew when a man was broke and Count Agostino Minotti was very close. Surrounded by the opulence of Palazzo Calergi where every whim was anticipated by the serving staff, where no one should have any worries, Count Agostino had worries aplenty. The signs were there in the desperate sweat on his brow, in the sharpness of his eyes as his brain rapidly inventoried his assets, searching for anything left worth bartering to cover the latest hand—the one in which he was sure his luck would turn.
Nolan knew it wouldn’t. His own hand was too good, and if there was such a thing as luck, it favoured the intelligent. Surely, the count had to know the odds of drawing the queen of spades were nearly non-existent. The count would never complete his straight. He’d been rather obviously collecting high-end spades this hand and everyone at the table knew it. Nolan didn’t suffer fools who couldn’t count cards nor did he have much sympathy for men who overplayed their funds. The count should have walked away an hour ago. Nolan only hoped the man would be able to cover tonight’s commitments. He had plans for that money.
The count pushed the rest of his money to the centre of the table, not nearly enough to cover the bet. What else would the count offer? The count’s next words took Nolan alternately by surprise and then disgust. ‘Two hundred lire and my daughter’s maidenhead.’
That was certainly different than the items wagered at English tables. But it made the man no less of a bastard to offer it. The principle of the matter dug sharp claws into Nolan’s sense of fair play. A gambler could risk anything he or she liked as long as it was theirs. But to risk what belonged singularly to another, to someone who was not directly involved in the play at the table and who had no say in the decision was beyond the pale of acceptability.
A quick glance around the table indicated he was the only one who apparently held any such scruples. There was a certain irony in that considering how jaded his palate had become over the years. He’d wagered and won numerous non-traditional items of interest in his career. But never a woman who hadn’t first offered herself as barter. Even then, that particular woman had wanted to lose. To him. On purpose. This was entirely different, and Nolan wasn’t sure he liked it.
The man to his left was greedily reassessing his hand. The man to his right made a crass comment about the girl in question and his own prowess that was better reserved for a cheap whorehouse than Palazzo Calergi’s elegant interiors. The others at the table laughed and threw out their own crudities, each one worse than its predecessor. Nolan felt his temper rise on behalf of the unseen girl. He counselled himself with quiet caution. He did not need to get sucked into this. Logic reminded him there was much he didn’t know about the situation. Logic also reminded him he was still the richest man at the table tonight and the one with the best hand. They were all playing against him. He was in charge. He would be the one to decide the girl’s fate; take her away from this with him or leave her to one of the others unless he could head this disaster off.
His first line of attack was to dissuade the count, perhaps even to rouse some dissent on behalf of the girl once these men saw sense. ‘Five thousand lire? That seems a bit expensive.’ The table didn’t seem to think so. These were born Venetians and this was Venice at Carnevale where virginity was a most elusive commodity. A city didn’t acquire a reputation for having the most accommodating courtesans in Europe by hoarding virgins. The economics of supply and demand made the price believable. So did the count’s desperation. Almost. This was a man who had been desperate before.
‘What insurance do we have that she’s actually a virgin? How do we know you haven’t offered her before?’ Nolan jested lightly, pushing his case as he watched the table, his body tensed for action should his comment meet with offence. The count was a desperate man and a reckless one if he was willing to sell his daughter to cover a bet. Assuming the woman in question was his daughter. The count didn’t particularly impress Nolan as a fatherly figure for obvious reasons. Still, he wouldn’t be the first man alive to be poorly suited for the occupation. Nolan’s own father would rival him there.
Minotti’s eyes narrowed dangerously. ‘Are you saying my daughter is a whore?’
‘Is she?’ Nolan leaned back in his chair, the nonchalance belying the tension coiled within him. If Minotti came at him, he would be ready. He could feel the comforting press of his new blade inside the sleeve of his coat. It could be in his hand in under a second.
Minotti’s eyes slid to the left, towards the long windows overlooking the Grand Canal, his voice smug with triumph. ‘Judge for yourself. She’s the one in pale blue, my Gianna.’
Nolan would have known her without the description. She was the one who looked out of place despite the blatant wealth exhibited in the expensive pearl-encrusted blue-damask gown. Good lord, the gown must weigh fifteen pounds on its own, adorning the palazzo as if it were an art piece designed for the room. Still, the richness of her costume couldn’t disguise the fact that she didn’t belong here. Palazzo Calergi might be a regal setting and this might be a private party for a few hundred of its owners’ personal friends and their guests, but it was still a party in the middle of Carnevale, hardly the sort of venue one took a daughter to. Her head turned towards the table as if she sensed she’d become the topic of conversation, her eyes landing on Nolan. On second thought, five thousand might be a generous bargain indeed, virgin or not.
The girl was stunning in her own right once one got past the dress. Certainly not in the way the other women in the room were stunning with their cosmetics, low-cut silks, and elaborate coiffures, the products of hours and artifice. Her beauty was natural, clean, somehow apart from the cosmopolitan elegance surrounding her and yet her beauty was not the lesser for what could only be described as its plainness. It was her skin that did it; a smooth, pink-tinged alabaster and as translucent, framed by hair so dark it appeared black at this distance.
Her eyes might have helped the cause, too. He could not tell the colour from this distance, but it hardly mattered. Her eyes were shrewd and sharp as they held his; challenging, thinking. Nolan had the uncomfortable sensation he was being assessed. Did she feel the same with the eyes of the table riveted on her? Did she know her father had put her up for auction to the winning hand? If she didn’t know, her fate would come as shock. If she did, however...
Cynicism flashed. Had father and daughter done this before? Was this some sort of scam they ran whenever the count was down on his luck? The whole offer smelled of trouble. Nolan’s eyes dropped back to the cards in his hand. The tiny voice of caution that usually kept quiet in his head was barking loudly now, joined by a strong sense of self-preservation. He should throw the hand and win the money elsewhere.
This money came with strings—more precisely, it came with a virgin. That was the very last thing he needed. What would he ever do with a virgin? He certainly wasn’t going to bed a woman against her will. Nolan’s eyes went to the pile in the centre of the table. But the money was a temptation nonpareil. Only noblemen wagered sums like these. This would take several nights to acquire at lesser venues. It would be a shame to waste this rather golden opportunity. Tonight would put him at his goal. His hopes were within reach. One virgin wasn’t going to stand in his way. Across the table, the count raised his hand and beckoned for the girl.
* * *
Gianna saw the summons, aware that the count and his table had been watching her. Worry pooled in her anxious pit of a stomach. What hell had he concocted for her now? Hadn’t the hell he’d presented her with this afternoon been enough to satisfy his jaded palate? Dante’s Inferno had nothing on Count Minotti when it came to exacting revenge or getting what he wanted.
She smoothed her hands over her elaborate skirts in a calming repetition of strokes and repeated her silent mantra: the count would not stand in her way. She would not allow him to. Whatever he did, she would be equal to the task. She would outthink him, outmanoeuvre him as she always had. She’d done it for five years. She could do it for four more weeks. He cannot hurt you. He would not dare. The money will protect you. But the usual comfort the words gave her was absent tonight. Her freedom was within reach, just a month away after years living under his so-called protection.
At the table, the count took her arm and she pulled away, not tolerating his touch. ‘Still upset by this afternoon, my pet?’ The count’s tone was wry as if this afternoon had been a minor concern, a mere game. But it hadn’t been, not to her and not to him. But she would not suffer him to touch her again.
‘What have you done?’ She kept her tones low, her eyes fixed on the count. The men at the table were eyeing her with something nearing avarice. Gianna’s anxiety was rising steadily, although she dare not show it. The count would like to see her fear, like to know he had power over her.
The count gave a shrug of his shoulders as if to indicate it was nothing of significance. ‘I am having a bit of bad luck tonight, I’m afraid. But that’s about to change. I have a good hand. I am sure to win.’
Gianna knew where the conversation was going. It was a distasteful one, but one she could handle. She reached up to pull off the pearl earrings that had once belonged to her mother. The count had ordered her to wear them tonight. He’d probably planned on forcing her to surrender them. He knew how she treasured them. She had resisted giving them to him once. It had been a mistake. It had shown the count they had emotional value to her. She’d quickly learned not to make that mistake twice.
The count gave a slight shake of his dark head. Gianna’s jaw tightened and her hands went to the clasp of her pearl choker. They were just things, she told herself. Placate him, give him what he wants. These are nothing in the scope of the greater picture. After their quarrel this afternoon, his demand could have been worse. She would be thankful for this small mercy. She only wanted to be done with him. She would do whatever it took to make it through the next four weeks. She would be twenty-two, old enough to claim her inheritance without him. Whatever her mother had seen in the man during her lifetime, Gianna could only guess.
The count shook his head again and Gianna froze. ‘You are very generous, but I’m afraid your pearls won’t be enough.’ His mouth turned up in a cruel smile. ‘Not those pearls anyway. There is one pearl these gentlemen seem to value, however.’ He paused. ‘I have wagered you, Gianna. More specifically, the pearl between your legs.’
Panic swamped her. He repeated himself, no doubt enjoying the perverse pleasure of saying the crude words out loud. On the surface, it was an appalling wager. Beneath that surface it was truly horrific in a way only the count would recognise. ‘Does my mother mean so little to you that you would make her daughter a whore?’
‘Your mother is dead. She holds no sway here,’ he countered, his words bloodless. ‘I offered you better this afternoon and you refused. You did this to yourself.’
Stay calm. Under no circumstances show him any emotion. She understood the men’s stares now. They were undressing her, imagining what they would do with her, to her, all except one whose gaze was on the count. Her stomach turned. The grip on her ‘calm’ was slipping. It was a Herculean task to maintain her reserve. She wanted to grab up the carefully blown glass goblets on the table and smash them against the silk-clad walls, to rage out loud against the count’s latest barbarism. She would show these men nothing, certainly not the count who thought he could pass her about, wager her as if she was nothing more than a bauble of mediocre value; as if he could wreck her plans with the turn of a card, as if she had no say in the matter. That last was a sticking point. Legally, she had no say, not until she turned twenty-two.
‘This is revenge,’ she accused, anger coursing through her, volcanic and explosive. If she was a man, she’d kill him. But if she were a man this would not have happened. She would have left the count years ago. ‘You are blackmailing me.’
‘This, my dear, is what happens when you leave me no choice,’ the count hissed.
‘Your offer was to marry the morally corrupt Romano Lippi, or to marry you,’ Gianna spat. ‘It was hardly a choice since either option turns a substantial portion of my inheritance over to you.’ She knew a moment’s triumph at the dark look stealing over his face. ‘I’m not stupid. I know exactly what you and Lippi had arranged. The two of you decided to split the inheritance.’
‘I must have something, Gianna. I’ll have my five thousand pounds with or without you. I’m broke and you are all I have left. Don’t worry. I will win and you can rethink your position on today’s negotiations. This is nothing. You’re only being wagered in theory.’
The count took his seat with a wide smile and a relaxed bonhomie at odds with their terse conversation. She was trapped. She would run if she could, but aside from the fact she had nowhere to run, she simply couldn’t. The dratted dress was far too heavy for anything but a sedate walk. So Gianna stood, she waited, she watched and tried not to panic.
The count leaned forward, his face flushed with the fever of the wager and the surety that he couldn’t possibly lose. ‘All right, gentlemen, let’s see your cards.’ Gianna stilled. This was it, the moment of truth.
Chapter Three (#ulink_baae7bfb-1bef-5256-9d47-0140660e7ba2)
Nolan knew the truth before the cards were laid down. The count’s hand was good, good enough to understand why he’d had hope of winning. But the count, like many amateur gamblers, lacked the ability to see beyond his own hand. Nolan knew not only what he, himself, held, but what others at the table held as well. The count had not yet learned that a hand was ‘good’ only by comparison.
Nolan lay down his hand. There were a few humorous moans from the other players who hadn’t bet more than they could afford to lose with some élan. But the count went pale. He’d lost everything, even his daughter. Ostensibly. Nolan still didn’t quite believe she was his daughter or even a virgin, although the paleness of the count’s face was starting to make it believable. Or perhaps it was only loser’s remorse, the crash that came after the high of an extraordinary wager before it had gone bust. The girl beside him showed no reaction beyond the movement of her eyes locking on his, a sharp, hazel-green gaze.
In that moment he knew he’d been wrong. She was not a girl. This was a woman. It was hard to be sure of her age, of her experience. Certainly, she was not a first-Season débutante, but neither could she be more than a year or two over twenty. There were flashes of youth in her at odds with the shrewdness he’d seen in her gaze, but she was a woman. Girlhood had been left behind years ago. The question surfaced again: had she done this before? He could usually read people well, but she was blank to him.
‘Perhaps another hand, Signor Gray?’ The count’s voice couldn’t disguise the tremor. Nolan had expected it, the gambler’s recourse; a second hand, a second try, anything to erase the sting of defeat.
‘Do you have another daughter to lose?’ Nolan queried in wry tones. He gave the man a rueful smile in the silence as he rose. The table had become deadly quiet. He needed to make a quick exit for everyone’s sake. ‘I didn’t think so. You have nothing left to wager.’ Nolan extended his hand to the daughter, her face still a blank canvas devoid of any emotion even as her fate clarified itself. There would be no quarter given to the count. He would be held to his brash wager. If she was frightened, angry, embarrassed or any of the thousand emotions one might feel after having been sold into a bargain not of their making, those emotions didn’t show. But Nolan was not dense enough to assume those emotions didn’t exist beneath her calm surface. Calm surfaces harboured all variety of dangers in his experience.
‘Signorina, it seems we are to leave together.’ Nolan took her arm. He would treat her respectfully until she gave him a reason not to. He did not envy her the situation. If she was innocent of all this, she must be in shock. If she was a knowing accomplice, she would be the one to directly endure the brunt of his anger when her duplicity was found out.
Nolan nodded once to the count. When he spoke, his words were for Minotti, but his manners were for her in the hopes of assuring her all would be well. ‘Buonanotte, your night ends here, I think, Minotti. Better luck another day. I shall return her to you.’ It was generous of him. Returning had not explicitly been part of the arrangement. Neither had not returning her. The parameters of this arrangement were somewhat nebulous in regards to their permanence. Nolan wondered which choice offered her the better chance. Would going back to the count only lead to more of this? The idea of her staying with him was impossible, not part of his plans. Nolan could only imagine what Brennan would say—when he stopped laughing.
* * *
This was no laughing matter. Panic receded in the wake of her anger. She had been sold to a foreigner and now she was being carted off like chattel. Not literally, of course. She’d not been slung across his rather broad shoulders, but even the touch of his hand at her back, guiding her through the crush of the ballroom, was too much for her roiling temper. She stepped beyond his reach, her words cold and demanding. ‘Take your hand off me. I am not your property.’
The Englishman chuckled, not the least put off by her cold tone, his voice was low and easy at her ear as he claimed her elbow, his arrogance unequalled. ‘My four aces beg to differ with your assessment.’
‘You don’t own me.’ Her words were vehement, but they were only words. There was no substance behind them and they both knew it. At the moment, she had nowhere to run, nowhere to go except with him. She needed a plan. She needed a way to see the silver lining. How could she turn this tragedy into an opportunity? If she could push past the panic that had consumed her at the table; the anger and disbelief that consumed her now, she could find a solution. But the Englishman’s arrogant words made it difficult.
‘Again, I must beg to differ. You’re as much my property as five thousand lire, Signor Bellosi’s gold watch and four diamond stickpins. The only difference is that you’re not as useful. I can’t convert you to cash.’
That did it. If there had been any lingering vestiges of shock, he’d effectively exorcised them. She would not be the pawn of any man again, not the count and certainly not this Englishman who acted as if this were a grand lark. At the bottom of the palazzo’s steep steps, gondolas bobbed on the waters of the canal. The Englishman handed her in and waited patiently for her to sit and arrange her art piece of a dress before joining her on the plush velvet seat. He had manners aplenty, even if he was arrogant, and that was something at least. She would take what she could get. It was starting to sink in just how much danger she was really in. If the money hadn’t protected her, nothing would.
He called out directions to the gondolier. ‘Hotel Danieli, per favore.’ Gianna smiled to herself. He had good manners and good taste, part of his arrogance, she supposed. He was a man who liked the best and perhaps therein lay his flaw. A proud man was blind to his weaknesses. She would exploit them if she had to, as long as he let her stay.
It was the hotel that clinched her decision, that showed her the silver lining. Staying was the key. The count had attempted to frighten her into compliance tonight, but he’d made a grave mistake. When he’d lost his hand, he’d inadvertently set her free. For a few days or for as long as the Englishman was willing to keep her, she was beyond the count’s control. Gianna didn’t fool herself into believing it would be easy. If, after a few days, she didn’t return, the count would come looking for her. She would have to act fast.
She couldn’t go back, not after tonight. Gianna shuddered to think of what going back would entail. The count would be cruel, crueller than he’d ever been. If he was willing to sell her virginity in a card game, there was no telling what he’d do next in order to get what he wanted. His home was no longer safe for her, if it had ever been.
Safe was a relative term in this case. If it was only herself to consider, she’d leave the city, but she couldn’t leave the city, not yet. There were things she needed to retrieve from the count’s home, she needed Giovanni and she needed her money. Otherwise there would be no way to support the two of them. Until those items were assured, she needed somewhere to live. She also needed a protector or at least the illusion of one.
Her mind began to work, a plan started to form, beginning with the premise that she’d catch more flies with sugar than vinegar. Perhaps the Englishman would play the role of protector for her if given the correct incentive. To do that, though, she’d have to change her current tack immediately. Everything hinged on the Englishman letting her stay beyond the night.
That conjured a host of other thoughts regarding what she might be required to do in order for her persuasion to be successful. Certainly, the Englishman was expecting to claim that which he’d won. A shiver took her. In her anger, her disbelief and panic over her plans being shredded, it had been easy to shove aside the more practical implication of what the wager involved: sex. With a stranger. With this man who sat beside her, a man about whom she knew nothing except his accommodations and that his manners, while nicely turned, bordered on arrogant. But perhaps she’d find a way to avoid that, too.
‘The Hotel Danieli is the finest in the city...’ she began, trying to make the stranger less strange. Perhaps if they talked, she could build some rapport. ‘It used to be a private palazzo.’ Gianna shivered again, this time from the breeze off the canal. She regretted not having had the Englishman stop for her cloak. Then again, if she had her cloak, she wouldn’t have an excuse for what she did next.
‘Are you cold?’ He shifted in his seat, but before he could shrug out of his coat and play the gentleman, she inched close until there was no space between them on the seat and pressed against him.
‘Just a little, I left my cloak behind. Would you mind if I...?’ She put her hand in the pocket of his evening coat, letting her words trail off in a delicate fade. She tossed him a smile. ‘Thank you, that’s better, much better.’
It was also much more ‘friendly’. The outside pocket of his evening coat proved to be a very intimate location indeed when one was seated. Her hand rested mere inches from a very private part of him that seemed compelled to stir at the proximity of her fingers. In a sense that was good. She wanted him attracted to her. But it was also a reminder of what might be surrendered in order to secure the larger goal.
They rode in silence after that, the Englishman not inclined towards conversation. The night spoke around them in the passing songs of the gondoliers and the laughter of revellers on the canals until the gondola bumped against the pier. The gondolier called out, ‘Hotel Danieli, signor.’
The Englishman extracted her hand from his pocket rather reluctantly, and stepped out of the barque. He passed some coins to the boatman, his words catching her entirely by surprise. ‘Take the lady wherever she’d like.’
Here! She wanted to be taken here, Gianna fought the urge to cry out. Surely he didn’t mean to leave her? Is this what he’d been thinking in the gondola? How to get rid of her? In all of her imaginings it had never occurred to her that he might find the arrangement as distasteful as she did. He was a man, after all, and men were all alike, her mama had taught her. Men were governed by sex.
She’d tried to make herself agreeable. She’d made conversation, to which he hadn’t responded. She’d put her hand in his pocket, to which he had responded. Sweet heaven, she’d almost touched his cock! He was not getting away this easy, not when she’d decided she had plans for him. Gianna bolted into action with a sharp cry. ‘Aspetta! Stop!’ She climbed clumsily to her feet, her hasty efforts hampered by her heavy skirts. She stumbled and got back up, the gondola rocking. She should have stilled and waited for the boat to settle but her mind was fixated on the Englishman. Her plans were not going to be wrecked by two men in one night. He couldn’t set her free. She had plans—admittedly, they were hastily concocted ones built in the silence of the boat ride, but plans none the less, to replace the ones the count had destroyed.
The Englishman stepped forward, holding up his hands in a placating gesture. ‘Signorina, I think you misunderstand. I am giving you your freedom. This is where you and I part ways.’ He said it as if ending their association was a good thing. They were not parting ways, not until she decided it.
Gianna faced him, hands on hips, trying to look dignified in a dangerously rocking boat. She pushed back a strand of hair and tilted her chin in defiance, struggling to maintain her balance. ‘No, signor, you misunderstand. This is the part where I—’
Stay.
The word never left her mouth. The gondolier gave a warning yelp and leapt for the pier. Gianna surged forward to the dock, hoping to escape the inevitable, but she was too slow. The boat tipped. She hit the water.
‘Gianna!’ The Englishman’s voice was the last sound she heard before she went under.
Two sensations hit her simultaneously: the water was dark. No lantern light reached the depths—
someone could fall in and simply disappear without being seen even if their fall had been noted. Second was that it was cold, so very cold. Gianna tried to push to the surface, arms and legs working to propel her upwards, but she had little momentum with nothing for her legs to push off from and an enormous amount of drag from her skirts. She needed more strength than she possessed.
She had no intentions of simply giving up. It would suit the count too well if she died. Everything she had would be his. He wouldn’t have to wait out the next four weeks. It would certainly suit the Englishman who had been so eager to send her away. No one would care except Giovanni. Giovanni was counting on her. But her air was failing, her strength was failing. What would happen to Giovanni?
There was a splash in the water beside her, a hand about her waist, another arm pushing upwards with her now. She lent her own meagre efforts, hurrying them upwards out of the murk. Haste was important now. Spots danced behind the lids of her eyes. If she lost consciousness, her dead weight would drag them both down. The surface at last! Her head broke the water and she dragged in a great breath, the Englishman beside her, his voice filling the night with directions.
‘We’re over here! I’ve got her. Get her up! Someone bring a blanket.’ It took two of them; the Englishman inelegantly pushing her up from behind, his hands on her bum, and the gondolier tugging her by the armpits to the pier. Task accomplished, the Englishman braced his hands on the dock and levered himself up with enviable, easy strength. He took the offered blanket and threw it about her shoulders. ‘Let’s get you inside.’
Gianna was shivering, unable to do anything but let him guide her into the opulent lobby of Hotel Danieli, his arm around her, holding her close to his side. She caught sight of herself in one of the long Venetian mirrors and groaned. She looked exactly like what she was—a soaking wet woman who’d just fallen into the canal. The Englishman, however, managed to look like a prince, all dripping six feet of him. Even wet and dressed in ruined clothing and barefoot. ‘You took time to remove your boots,’ she accused testily. She’d been panicking underwater, facing certain death, and he’d taken time to pull off his boots.
The Englishman laughed, a warm, light chuckle. She had the sensation again that everything was a lark, even death. ‘I assumed you didn’t want us to both drown? Your dress weighed enough without contending with my boots.’ He put his mouth close to her ear the way he had in the ballroom. ‘There’s a reason, Gianna, people swim naked.’
Her cold body went hot at the words, the sound of her name on his lips, the tickle of his breath at her ear. It was a most inappropriate comment made at a most inappropriate time in a most inappropriate place. Not surprising considering how the evening had gone. It fit perfectly with everything else that had occurred: she’d been wagered and lost in a card game by the one man her mother had trusted to look out for her, her plans for freedom from the count were now entirely undermined and her fate was in the hands of a stranger. What else could go wrong? What else was there to go wrong?
Chapter Four (#ulink_283c839e-bfd4-5390-bafc-63250e4c52a0)
The room was sumptuous. Perhaps it was safe to assume that the worst had happened. Perhaps her luck was starting to change. His rooms were of the finest quality: furniture upholstered in silk, long curtains with luxurious folds draped the windows like a woman’s ball gown where the rooms looked out over the canal. From here, there was a view of the chamber beyond with its enormous bed strewn with pillows. Even at a distance, that room exuded decadence, a not-so-subtle reminder that what had started this night might still very well finish it. Sex was a powerful weapon when used correctly. Gianna hoped she knew enough to wield it. She shivered and drew the blanket tighter around her.
‘Let’s get you into a bath. Come with me.’ He led her into the bedroom and through a door into the most incredible room she’d ever seen, a room entirely given over to the function of bathing. There was a porcelain tub rooted to the floor. He bent over the handles and turned them, water flowed. Steam rose.
‘Oh.’ She gasped. She’d heard of such features before, but they were non-existent at the count’s house. This was positively divine. The Englishman moved about, laying out plush white towels and a thick bar of milled soap, so intricately carved she almost didn’t want to use it and destroy its perfection.
His hands were at the back of her gown before she realised it. ‘Let’s get you out of this. What a mess.’
There was no sense protesting. She couldn’t possibly take it off by herself. Gianna let his fingers work the long row of tiny pearl buttons at her back. His touch was swift, professional and yet beneath that layer of competence, there was a sensually compelling undertone that suggested his hands would feel good on her skin. Surely that boded well for the next level of her plan?
‘It took my maid twenty minutes to do up the buttons. You’ve done this before.’ Gianna tried for levity, anything to keep her mind off the fact that she was alone in a hotel room with a man she didn’t know and she was there for the express purpose of being bedded by him. Never mind he’d tried to let her go. She’d refused. He would think that refusal was an acceptance of another sort...
He laughed, finishing the last of the buttons low on her spine. ‘Let’s just say you aren’t the first woman I’ve undressed, wet or otherwise.’
She supposed she’d deserved that with her leading question. The gown fell open. She could feel his gaze on her back, a sensation that was provocatively possessive and not without its own thrill. ‘Stand still,’ he murmured at her ear. ‘I’ll have to use my knife.’
His knife? That galvanised her into action. Gianna spun away from him, clutching her dress to her, her eyes rapidly scanning the room for a possible weapon, all sense of flirting, of wanting to lure him with sugar evaporating in the wake of self-preservation. ‘There is no need for knives, I assure you.’ She tried her best calming tones, the tones she used to reason with the count when he was irrational—which was nearly always. Surely she could handle one Englishman.
Gianna snatched up a ewer, brandishing it in self-defence as she edged towards the door. A knife flashed in his hand from some secret place on his person and she knew she was right to have gone on the defensive. Good lord, he’d been armed all along! What sort of man carried a weapon to a party? She’d traded drowning in the canal for being stabbed by a madman in hotel room, who was laughing.
The Englishman held out his arms in a gesture of peace, apparently having found great humour in the situation. ‘Put down the ewer, Gianna. The knife is for the laces. They’re in knots. I’m afraid there’s no saving them. Now, turn around and let me at them. Your bath is ready and you’re shaking.’
Hot embarrassment crept up her cheeks. She’d completely overreacted. But what else was she to think? It was easier to turn around than to let him see her blush. She’d let herself look foolish. ‘You find this funny?’ she scolded. She felt the slice of a sure blade through the sodden laces of her corset, felt the tight garment slide away, felt her body breathe, set free.
His hands closed over the caps of her shoulders, warm and firm against her chilled skin. ‘I think it’s funny that you believe I would go to all the trouble of dragging you out of the canal just to stab you a half hour later in my room.’ His fingers flexed gently against her skin, his mouth close to her ear. ‘What holds no humour for me is why a beautiful woman would have reason to think a man would do that.’
His body was just inches from hers. She could feel the heat of him through his wet clothes, feel the strength of him—it was there in the low rumble of his words, in the remembrance of the arm that had brought her to the water’s surface. This was a very different man than the count. She’d known it at the palazzo, but had not fully understood what it meant until now.
Where the count thrived on cruelty and force, this man did not. However, that mere discrepancy did not make him a saint. She had to be careful not to ascribe heroic attributes to him just because he’d dragged her out of the canal and hadn’t ravished her yet. He was still a gambler and he was a still a rogue—a rogue who was growing more appealing by the moment.
A shiver of a different sort swept through Gianna. She knew danger when she encountered it and it was standing right behind her. It wasn’t the knife in his hand that made him dangerous, it was his manners, his temptations.
He stepped back, releasing her. ‘Take your bath.’
Gianna turned to face him. He’d saved her tonight. He’d looked after her. How long had it been since anyone had done that? He was a complete stranger, someone who didn’t have to do any of those things and yet he had. She didn’t even know his name. She stretched a hand out. ‘You have my thanks, ah...?’ She waited for him to fill in the space left by her words.
A small smile twitched on his lips as he took her hand. ‘Are you asking me my name? It’s Nolan Gray.’
‘I’m trying to thank you, Mr Gray.’ She couldn’t resist a smile of her own, something warm unfurling in her stomach. She imagined he rather regularly had that effect on women. Once more she counselled caution. She didn’t want to like him. She just needed him to get through the next four weeks.
* * *
He just had to get through the night. He had a naked woman in his tub and no idea what to do with her, a most novel situation to be sure. Usually he knew exactly what to do with a naked woman in the tub, out of the tub, on the bed, off the bed, against the wall, out on the balcony with the moon overhead. He had to stop, this was starting to sound like an erotic prepositional exercise or bad poetry. Too bad his tutors had not aspired to such creative lengths—he might have done better in school.
Nolan stripped out of his clothes at last, glad to be rid of the damp and stench of the canal. He towelled dry his hair and slipped into his banyan, feeling warmer, cleaner already, but that raised another point of concern. What was she going to wear? Her gown was beyond use, wet and ruined. It was past midnight. There were no shops open and he didn’t know any shopkeepers to rouse. But he did know a friend... Brennan. Nolan grinned and hurried next door.
Brennan answered, half-dressed and less than half-sober. ‘Do you still have that nightgown, Bren? The one you just ordered.’
‘The one I ordered for my special lady,’ Brennan drawled his correction.
‘I need it, Bren.’ Nolan leaned against the doorjamb, his voice low. If Brennan was home this time of night he wasn’t alone and he didn’t want his business broadcast to all and sundry. ‘I have a situation.’
‘I have a situation, too, as it were.’ Brennan directed his eyes downward meaningfully where his robe gaped.
‘Please, she fell in the canal and has nothing to sleep in.’
Brennan raised a brow. ‘And that’s a problem how? I thought you screwed naked.’
‘Normally I do.’ Nolan stopped. What was he doing? He did not have to justify that to Brennan. Nolan rolled his eyes. One of the consequences of living in his friends’ pockets was that they knew everything about him, personal habits and all. He had no privacy left even when he had separate rooms. Nolan pushed a hand through his hair, striving for clarity. ‘It’s complicated, Bren. I won her in a card game, she fell out of the gondola, she’s in the tub right now.’ Striving and failing. Nolan blew out a breath. He could see the explanation didn’t help. He was flubbing this up miserably in his haste to get back to the room.
Brennan waved him off with a hand. ‘Enough, you’re making my head hurt. You can have the damn nightgown if you’ll just stop with all these details.’ Brennan retreated into the dark of his room and came back, a silky white item in one hand. ‘Just to be clear, I won’t want it back when you’re done.’
‘Thanks, I owe you one.’
Brennan laughed. ‘One nightgown, to be precise. I will want it replaced. Now, go to bed.’
Bed was an interesting proposition indeed given there was only the one in his suite and he’d not planned on sharing it with the lovely, mercurial Gianna. He’d also not planned on having her in his room, let alone his bed. Nolan stepped into the steamy bathing room, calling out his approach from the dressing screen that shielded the tub from any intruders. ‘Are you decent? I found you something to wear.’
He heard the water slosh, her voice momentarily flustered. ‘Toss it over the screen, I’ll be out in a minute.’
‘There’s no need to rush,’ Nolan called back, trying to sound cheerful. No need at all. He was still trying to figure out what to do with her, but before he could do that, he had to figure out what to make of her.
He draped the silky material over the screen. The evening hadn’t gone quite as anticipated. He was supposed to have won money, not a woman. But he’d had a plan for that, too. That woman was supposed to have embraced her freedom and left him at the pier. It was a nice, expedient option that should have satisfied them both. In the main room, Nolan poured himself a drink and went out on the balcony to think and to wait. He’d had one plan, but apparently, she’d had another, and that was cause for wonder.
Nolan leaned on the railing, his gaze going out across the dark waters as he sipped at the brandy, letting his thoughts come fast and logical: Was Gianna Minotti a fraud? Was she for real? Was she a little of both, part fact, part fiction? Perhaps of more immediate concern, what did she want badly enough to turn down her freedom and accompany an unknown man to a hotel room, an act that had obviously inspired at least a little fear in her?
There was a delicate cough behind him. He turned, preparing himself for the sight of Gianna Minotti in whatever passed for Brennan’s taste in nightwear. There would be no reason to overreact. This wasn’t his first woman in a nightgown or his first woman anything—he was way beyond firsts when it came to what happened in a bedroom.
His preparation was not enough. Thankfully, years of rote response came to his aid. ‘Will it suffice?’ The words came out of his mouth with little effort from him because the rest of him seemed tongue-tied. The pale-blue dress with its heavy adornments had not done her justice. It had, in fact, distracted the viewer with its opulence from the full onslaught of her beauty. But there was no distraction now.
Nolan’s eyes were riveted on her face, helped there by the simple classic lines of the gown, the thin unobtrusive straps at her shoulders that demanded no attention and the dark cloud of her hair hanging loose and damp at her shoulders, framing her face and those striking hazel eyes. Her face itself was ultimately feminine, at once managing to be compassionate without being soft or delicate, intelligent without being hard. A smart man, a man who wanted to understand her, would study that face for hours and recognise its layers, the complexities of her expressions. Only when that was mastered would he move on to study the rest of her body, shown to perfection in the simplicity of the white gown. Tonight he could not be that man.
Nolan felt his body, typically well trained to reserve its judgement until his mind was made up, stir with arousal. The gown flowed over her curves at the behest of her body, not of fashions. Where the blue gown had forced her to conform, this silk conformed to the wearer, flowing over the swell of her breast, the nip and flare of waist and hip. No wonder Brennan had been reluctant to part with it. The gown had been made by a magician.
‘It suffices, I’d say.’ She took a few steps forward to the cluster of furniture around the fireplace, the silk emphasising the sway of her hips, her mouth quirked in a wry smile that said she’d noted his interest. Damn. He hated being the transparent one. Usually, those roles were reversed. Usually... How many times had he thought of such contrasts tonight? The ‘usual’ held no power here. Nothing that had happened tonight had gone according to plan or prediction.
‘I see the tea has come.’ She sat on the curved sofa and prepared to pour, presiding over the porcelain like a naughty angel in her white gown, her hazel eyes looking preternaturally green against the paleness of her surroundings. ‘Perhaps you’d prefer something stronger?’ She gestured to the decanter on the sideboard, noting the half-empty glass in his hand. ‘I think I’d prefer a little of both after all the excitement tonight.’
Nolan brought the decanter over and sat down, one leg crossed over the other, and let her serve him. If women served tea in nightgowns like this more often, men might actually enjoy the event. He admired the way in which she had manoeuvred things. It was neatly done indeed, masterful even. Of course, he recognised her strategy. It was a trick he used often. To take charge of a situation, one merely had to find a task to perform and then incorporate others into the scheme by asking them questions. Suddenly, you were giving orders and people were looking to you for direction.
She refilled his glass and passed it to him before splashing a healthy amount into her teacup, slightly self-conscious for the first time now that there was no task to perform; no wager to watch, no canal to be hauled out of, no bath to take, no tea to serve. Their action-packed evening had come to a screeching halt and now it was just them and the original reason they were together to start with.
‘So, here we are.’’ Nolan drawled with lazy nonchalance, settling back deep in his chair. Despite his misgivings over her authenticity, he was starting to enjoy this. The next move was hers. What would his bold lady do next?
Chapter Five (#ulink_745dc22f-e2cd-5019-ace6-0ed4d3b2c2bd)
Here they were. In their nightclothes. Together. Gianna took a slow sip of the hot tea. There was a reason polite society didn’t encourage conversation in dishabille and this was it. Without the trappings of one’s wardrobe, one was entirely exposed in more than the obvious ways, although just the obvious exposure alone was enough to leave her feeling flustered and hot at a time when she need to be completely in control.
‘Here we are.’ She smiled, trying to give away none of her nerves. ‘I must thank you again for all you’ve done for me tonight.’ No, that was all wrong, it was too bland. She had to say something more than that if she meant to hold his attention. ‘The gown is lovely. I’m amazed you were able to find anything on such short notice.’ No, that was wrong, too. A man like him must have access to all types of female venues and females. She wondered where the gown had come from, which woman had sacrificed it for her, in return for what? What had the intriguing Nolan Gray promised in exchange?
‘I’m only sorry it didn’t come with a robe.’ Nolan Gray said easily, casually, from his chair, as if he talked with barely clad women over tea all the time. And he might. He’d made it clear in the bathing room undressing women was not a rare occurrence in his life.
‘Liar.’ Gianna caressed the word, a knowing half-smile on her lips. Women were easy for him. This was a man who would want to be flirted with, a man who would want a sensual challenge, something that differed from the norm of his usual experience. She let her eyes hold his over the rim of her tea cup. They were mesmerising eyes, not hard at all to look at with their quicksilver flecks, but hard to look away from. A woman could get lost in them and the decadent promises they held. ‘You’re not sorry at all.’ They were bold words from a bold woman, the sort of woman this man would find appealing.
Nolan Gray wasn’t the sort of man who had to win a woman in a card game. An expanse of well-muscled chest showed in the open vee of his robe, reminding her of the powerful body that had propelled her out of the water, reminding her, too, that she played with a certain intimate fire here. She’d initiated an assertive flirtation and he was very willing to respond in kind.
His eyes drifted over her in a deliberate slide of quicksilver on silk, his gaze making his unspoken thoughts evident: he wanted her. It was to be expected given the circumstances. She was his to want, won fair and square according to the rules of men. But there was more in that gaze than sheer male covetousness and that was what made her pulse race. Those thoughts conveyed possibilities, promises, of pleasure. ‘No, you’ve caught me out. I’m not sorry. You’re a beautiful woman. The blue dress hid you.’
‘The blue dress was worth a fortune,’ she countered, encouraging the flirtation. Flirting was a means to an end, part of her arsenal. If he wanted her, he would let her stay. She had to view that as progress. On the docks he’d been ready to let her go and that did not suit her purposes. But to get what she wanted from him, she’d have to tempt him beyond coy flirtation and who knew where that would end? Well, she knew where that would end—in his bed, with her taking one step closer to becoming her mother, one step closer to being dependent on men, the very thing she’d fought so hard against the count to avoid.
‘It’s too bad the count didn’t wager the dress instead, then.’ Nolan took a swallow of brandy. She followed that swallow down the strong length of his throat. Did she really have a choice in the short term if her long-term goals were to be met?
Gianna stopped her line of thought. How often had her mother said the same? She’d married the count based on that exact logic. She’d wanted respectability for her children, the kind that came cloaked in a title. And yet, despite that cautionary tale, Gianna couldn’t help but think that if she did have to sacrifice herself to the Englishman, then so be it. Was it wrong that part of her didn’t think it would be a terrible sacrifice if it came to that?
The man across from her was attractive with his grey eyes accented by the sweeping upper curve of his cheekbones. It made for an appealing combination of strength and approachability, drawing the eye up to the spill of water-dark hair pushed back from his forehead. His hair would be lighter once it dried, although right now it was the shade of walnuts. His hair had been the colour of sweet pralines in the ballroom. He was a finely made man, too. She’d already noticed how tall and lean-muscled he was and with the manners to go with the looks. To dance with him in a ballroom would be a dream...a dream she should not be entertaining given her circumstances. It would certainly have helped lessen his appeal if he’d been a boor.
‘Why do you suppose he chose to wager you and not the dress?’ Nolan was musing out loud, and she needed to pay attention. Listening was one of a courtesan’s most powerful weapons—the source of information.
‘He was angry with me,’ Gianna replied, not wanting to go into the details. If she was too messy, too complicated, or if he sensed an association with her could be potentially dangerous, he would be rid of her. Nolan raised a brow as if to suggest ‘angry’ didn’t quite explain why a man would wager his daughter in a card game.
She didn’t want to explain. She didn’t want his pity just yet and certainly not his rejection. That was what she’d have if she told him the whole sordid story. She’d tell him later perhaps if she was desperate. Pity could be a tool, too. Besides, telling the story exposed her hand more than she wanted. They might be drinking tea in their nightwear and he might have saved her from drowning but he was still a stranger. So much lay unknown between them. At the moment, she was operating off nothing more than her assumptions about his character.
‘More brandy?’ she offered. She rose with the decanter in hand to cross the short distance between them, but Nolan waved it away.
‘More answers.’ He set his glass down on the low table, pushing it away from him with a sense of finality. Gianna swallowed hard. Small talk was over.
It was time to be bold. She needed a distraction or he’d drag the entire story out of her. She would tell him when she was ready, when she knew she had him and he wouldn’t send her back. Until then, she needed to give him a reason to let her stay. Gianna put down the decanter and pulled off the stopper. She gave it a long, slow lick of her tongue, her eyes on Nolan, watching his reaction. ‘Perhaps we can think of something else to do with the brandy besides drink it.’ Her voice was husky and provocative, the implication clear.
His grey eyes went black at the fantasy she conjured. ‘What are you suggesting?’ His voice had become a husky growl. It was now or never. Gianna seized her courage. She could do this. She knew in theory what men wanted and how to deliver it, if not in practice. But truly, how hard could it be?
Gianna knelt at his knees in the small place between him and the tea table, careful to keep her eyes on his, never letting him guess the boldness was an act. ‘We can find something better to entertain ourselves with besides talk. After all, you didn’t win my conversation in a card game.’ She ran her hands up the insides of his thighs beneath his banyan, over the rough hair of his legs, and she knew the heady sensation of success.
Already his body was shifting, opening to accommodate her touch, his robe falling away to reveal all of him, his phallus starting its journey to arousal as her thumb met with its head, his tip rubbery and tender. She’d not thought it would feel so...vulnerable...when the rest of his body was so very hard. She closed her hand over the length of his shaft, feeling its heat, its pulsing life as it grew harder. She started to stroke.
His hand came down quick and fierce, shackling her wrist. ‘What the hell do you think you’re doing?’
‘Do you prefer something else?’ Gianna fired back, defensive in her doubt. Was she doing it wrong?
‘I’d prefer the truth.’ His grip was hard as he brought both of them to their feet. Standing nose to nose or rather nose to chest, she felt the whole force and strength of his presence. Had she misjudged him? Was there cruelty in him yet? Gianna tensed and waited.
‘You haven’t the faintest idea of what you’re doing, of what you’re playing with,’ he accused, and she felt her cheeks burn with shame. He had roused to her touch, her efforts couldn’t have been that far off the mark. Gianna willed herself not to look away from him as he continued his scold. She would not give him or any man the satisfaction of victory. Nolan’s eyes were hard, near-obsidian shards as he made his case. ‘At the palazzo you were not the least interested in sleeping with me. I believe your words were “take your hand off me”. That seems to have changed in a rather short time. Frankly, I find your about-face unbelievable. Perhaps we should try your resolve before this goes any further.’
It was all the warning she had. He seized her mouth in a bruising kiss that left her breathless and reeling from its onslaught, but there was no mistaking this kiss for anything other than what it was—a punishment, a proving ground.
Nolan dragged his mouth away, his eyes narrowed in flinty speculation. ‘That’s what I thought.’ He ran his hand across his mouth, and Gianna knew whatever test he had put to her she had failed. ‘A woman always kisses her truth. Now, why don’t you tell me how it is that a woman who didn’t want to be wagered turns down her freedom when it’s offered to her, especially when she’s not particularly interested in sleeping with me?’
Gianna gathered her dignity and looked him in the eye. She was losing him, not because she lacked competence in the arts of seduction, but because he saw through her, he knew her game and it dulled her one weapon. ‘I’m sure I don’t know what you mean.’
‘Before you oh, so conveniently fell into the canal you were about to say “this is where I stay”,’ he prompted, not believing her feint of ignorance. ‘Somewhere between the ballroom and the canal incident, you decided you didn’t want to be free of me.’
His meaning was evident. Anger surged. ‘You think I planned this? You think I wanted to fall into the canal?’
Her own accusation didn’t appear to stoke his temper. His gaze remained steady. He let go of her wrist and crossed his arms over his chest, entrenching. She recognised the signs. ‘There are those who would say you’ve done well for yourself tonight. You’re here, after all, in this sumptuous room. The question is why?’ His voice was a sensuous caution, reminding her that she toyed with a dangerous man in spite of the kindnesses he’d shown her. ‘What do you want so badly, Gianna, you’re willing to put your hand and no doubt eventually your mouth on a stranger’s cock?’
It would have been better to have simply called her a whore. His crass description of her efforts to bribe him into compliance put her over the edge. Whatever restraint she had left fled in the wake of her temper at full boil. She raised her hand and struck him hard across the face, across that beautifully curved sweeping cheekbone.
‘How dare you!’ But she knew how he dared. He dared because it was true. She’d been willing to do that much and more if need be and it shamed her. In those moments she’d become like her mother, the very life she was trying so hard to avoid—a life dependent on a man’s reactions to her charms.
Nolan stepped away from her, his body coiled but controlled. He didn’t even raise a hand to touch the red stain she’d left on his face. She envied him that reserve he could conjure at will. ‘I’m sorry if the truth stings, signorina,’ he said coldly. ‘Please excuse me. I find I’m not good company this evening. I’m going to find a nice stiff drink or two. Make free of the room. I will not be back tonight.’
He couldn’t leave! She was already regretting her actions. Didn’t she know by now violence solved nothing, it only made things worse? How quickly she’d sunk to the very depths she despised in the count. ‘You’re not dressed,’ she asserted hastily. In her anger she might have ruined everything. She couldn’t let him go with things like this. What had she been thinking to strike him? What if he sent for the count? She couldn’t go back.
Nolan’s hand stalled on the doorknob, and he gave her a wry smile. ‘For what I pay here, princess, they’d let me drink naked.’ Then he was gone, leaving her alone with a bed and a half-full decanter of brandy. It should be enough to numb the pain. Things would look brighter in the morning. They had to, because they looked impossibly dark right now.
Chapter Six (#ulink_1afde1e7-d882-52a6-a1c7-41a0db7807b3)
Oh, the agony! Nolan groaned, but the noise of it, the effort of it, only made the pain worse. His head was splitting like Zeus about to birth Athena. With a blind hand, he groped for the bedside table and the morning remedy he left there for occasions like this. His hand came up empty—no furniture, no magic morning. Why was that?
Nolan hazarded a peep out of the slit of one cautious eye. Ow! He shut it quickly and cursed. Who the hell had left the curtains open? The morning was not off to a good start and it was only sixty seconds old. If this was how the day was going to progress, he would stay in bed. Then he remembered why he couldn’t. For starters, he wasn’t even in a bed, but a chair and a deuced uncomfortable one at that. Second, this wasn’t his room. This was Hotel Danieli’s private club, with its large bay of windows looking out on to the canal. He was here because she was there—there being his perfectly appointed room with night-dark curtains the staff knew to keep drawn until noon and his miracle remedy against all nature of hangovers on his bedside table.
Nolan shifted, his body conflicted in its priorities. Did it stay still, to dull the ache in his head, or give in to the urge to stretch and relieve the stiffness of having passed out in a club chair hours ago? His body opted to move. That was a mistake. He regretted moving instantly, then regretted having drunk so much brandy. Well, it hadn’t entirely been brandy. There’d been some wine, too. This was all her fault, every aching, throbbing body part of it. The evening in its entirety flooded back in head-splitting flashes; the card game, the gondola, the canal—oh, Lord, the canal—he still carried a faint whiff of it on his skin—and the girl who had ruined everything, even his solution to save them both from further complication.
He’d offered her freedom from the agreement. She was supposed to have taken it and left him at the pier—dry and ready to move forward with the next step of his plans. It was a nice expedient option that should have satisfied them both. Apparently she had a different option in mind—one that involved falling into the canal. Even now, he wasn’t sure if she’d done it on purpose. It had been an enormous chance to take on her part in a dress weighted down by pearls.
That wasn’t the only thing he wasn’t sure about. Was she really a virgin or had the count lied about that, too? It was rather hard to believe and yet he couldn’t rule it out as truth. Nolan groaned again, this time from the realisation of what he’d done based on accepting the count’s word at face value. What if he’d been wrong to trust her? If she had manipulated everything, it meant he’d just left a very experienced con artist alone in his room with all of his winnings. Nolan forced himself into an upright position, fighting hard to ignore the spinning room and the stab of pain. He had to get upstairs.
It was an absolute labour of Hercules to pull himself up the grand staircase in his dressing gown in front of bright-eyed tourists heading out to see the sights. It wasn’t the dressing gown that bothered him. If he’d been in better spirits, he’d have made a game out of it, bowing and nodding to the ladies as if he were fully clothed. But he was in no mood for games. His head ached, his stomach roiled on the verge of nausea and it was suitable punishment for what he’d done. Had he let her manipulate him or was she simply that good and he hadn’t seen it coming, he who prided himself on being a student of human nature?
Nolan ran through the progression of events. She’d been trying to seduce him, which had been an obvious if enjoyable ploy. He recalled with clarity the feel of her warm hand on his very responsive cock. If she’d been a different sort of woman in different circumstances, he would have taken her generous offer. But he’d been wary of her motives. When seduction had failed, she’d opted for a quarrel. In hindsight, he could see how that would work to her advantage. Perhaps she had intended to blind him with anger, knowing he’d storm out, maybe knowing, too, that a man who had bothered to drag her out of the canal, run her a hot bath and find her a nightgown wasn’t going to throw her out after all that trouble.
Nolan fumbled for the key in his dressing-robe pocket and fitted it to the lock. He held his breath. This was the moment of truth. He opened the door to his room. The front room was empty except for the abandoned tea set and his stomach dropped. He strode into the bedroom, fearing the worst—that she was gone and his money with her. He stopped in the doorway and smiled, a big, wide smile that hurt his head. Right now, he didn’t care. The pain was worth it.
Gianna Minotti lay sprawled face down on his bed, the silk nightgown bunched up high on her thighs, revealing long, slim legs and a glimpse of rounded buttock. Her hair was a glorious tangled mop over her face. Was that a small trail of drool at her mouth? One hand trailed limply over the bed. Nolan followed it down to the empty glass on the floor just beyond her fingertips.
His eyes darted to the nightstand and the nearly empty decanter. She’d had the same idea as he. Chances were, she’d get the same results. His magic morning was still at the bedside, too. He grabbed up the glass and drank, making sure to save some for her. She was going to need it. Nolan fought back the urge to laugh as he headed for the bath. It was true. Misery loved company. He was feeling better already.
* * *
There was a man singing in the bathroom and she just wanted him to stop! Gianna moaned and rolled over. It was a bad idea, but obviously just one of many, the brandy having been the first bad idea. What had possessed her to imbibe like that? Then she remembered. Him. This was all his fault. Sort of. At the moment, she couldn’t remember exactly why it was his fault. Oh, yes, he’d won her in a card game. Not her specifically, but her maidenhead. Which he hadn’t claimed, yet, proving the brandy hadn’t accomplished anything except for giving her a monstrous headache.
The door to the bathing room opened, and she cracked one eye, then two. If she had to wake up with a pounding head there were worse sights to wake up to. Nolan Gray emerged from the steam, wrapping a white towel around his waist, water dripping from his hair. His singing stopped when he saw her but he didn’t stop smiling. ‘Buongiorno,signorina. How is your head?’
The smiling, singing bastard knew exactly how her head felt—she could see the mischief in his eyes. Gianna reached for a pillow, intending to throw it at him. The effort was too much for her body. Her stomach rebelled, the world swam and spun in front of her abruptly upright head. She went hot, then cold, entirely out of control of her body. Oh, no! She couldn’t stop it. Her throat made a panicked sound. Nolan was there, kneeling beside her, a chamber pot at the ready, his hand sweeping back her hair just in time.
She retched most thoroughly not once but twice, her stomach spilling its contents into the chamber pot. It was humiliating and healing all at once. Realising that somehow made it even more mortifying because, when the wave of nausea passed, she was glad she’d done it. Casting up accounts had been exactly what she’d needed.
‘Better?’ Nolan brought a wet washcloth and helped her with her face. The cold water felt refreshing on her skin. She lay back against the bed pillows, feeling drained, but immensely improved. ‘If I could get rid of the pounding in my head, I would be at a hundred per cent.’ She managed a smile, but it was hard considering she’d just thrown up in front of a man dressed in a towel—a man who had already fished her out of the canal and tried to save her from the count’s reckless wager.
He had an answer for that, too. ‘Drink this. It will help your head.’ He passed her a half-filled glass filled with a greenish liquid.
She sniffed and wrinkled her brow. ‘What is it?’
‘My secret recipe for mornings like these.’ He chuckled at her reticence. ‘You can live with the headache or you can try it. I’ve already had mine and look at me.’ He held his arms wide. Look at him indeed. It was hard not to. He was as well made as the glimpses last night had purported. Lean muscles defined his arms and chest beneath the lingering tan of his skin. It was not a deep tan, of course, they were too far into the winter for that, but he had been tan at one point. It made her wonder what he’d been doing. Cards were usually an indoor pursuit, in her experience. It was nice to think he might be more than a gambler.
Gianna gave him a dubious look and downed the glass. She cringed at the taste and swallowed. ‘This had better work.’
‘It will work. It tastes too awful not to.’ He laughed and rummaged in the drawers of the bureau and tossed her a shirt. ‘You can put this on until we can find you something better to wear. I’ll dress in the other room. Come out when you’re decent. Breakfast will be here soon. I have it delivered every day at noon.’
Breakfast? Decent? She was sceptical of both ideas, but Nolan merely laughed at her frown as he gathered up clothes. ‘Nothing fancy, just toast and coffee,’ he assured her. ‘It will help, too, you’ll see.’
Gianna held the shirt against her. She was sceptical of more than breakfast. They had not parted on good terms last night. He’d accused her of deliberately falling into the canal, and she had slapped him. ‘Why are you doing this? Why are you being so nice?’
Nolan shrugged. ‘Does there have to be a reason? Maybe I’m feeling grateful that my hangover is behind me. It is a glorious feeling to be restored to health, don’t you agree?’ The last was added rather pointedly.
Gianna blushed, but she was not diverted. ‘Maybe it’s more than that.’
‘Maybe,’ Nolan drawled, letting his eyes roam over her. ‘I’m just glad to find you’re still here and that you haven’t robbed me blind. You knew exactly how much I’d won and where it was at.’
‘You insult me.’ She must be feeling better. Her temper stirred a little, a sure sign she was recovering her spirit. It stung that he still didn’t believe she was innocent in all this, that she’d had no part in the wager, no designs to steal from him and return to the count.
‘No,’ Nolan corrected, tossing the words over his shoulder as he exited to the other room. ‘I honour you with the truth. In cases like this, I find it’s best to know where we stand with one another.’
Ah, they were not so dissimilar. They both believed one caught more flies with sugar than vinegar. He was flattering her. Not with words, necessarily. In fact, he was purposely using his words to do the exact opposite in the hopes that she wouldn’t notice. But she’d been in the world of men too long. She knew better. He was flattering her with actions, luring her trust with nightgowns and shirts; hot baths and tea trays; miracle headache cures and timely placement of chamber pots. Do not like him, she admonished, slipping out of the nightgown and folding it carefully before placing it in a drawer.
Gianna slipped her arms into the sleeves of the shirt. The garment was too big, of course. The sleeves had to be rolled up and it fell nearly to her knees. But it was clean and soft against her skin the way only expensive linen could be. She breathed deeply. The shirt smelled good, like him, she realised. It matched the scent that had trailed out of the bathing room with him; sandalwood with the faintest hints of patchouli. She drew another deep breath and knew she had to be careful.
He was a worthy opponent at a time when she needed a more naïve one. Nolan Gray did nothing without a motive. Even this act of dressing her in his shirt was an act of intimacy designed to draw her closer, designed to create the illusion of a bond between them. He wants you to like him, came the thought. She played a question-and-answer game with herself as she fastened the shirt.
Why? Last night he’d wanted to be rid of her.
Because friends tell one another their secrets.
In his eyes, what was her secret?
Answer: he wanted to know why she didn’t want to leave when she hadn’t wanted to come in the first place.
Gianna paused, hesitating before picking up the brush laid out on the dresser. He wouldn’t mind. He’d want her to use it, one more act of kindness to bind her to him. She dragged the brush through her tangles, feeling more in charge with each brushstroke, more like herself. Regardless of what anyone said, appearances mattered, even when one was only wearing a shirt, or perhaps especially when one was wearing only a shirt. It was already noon and the clock was ticking. How much time did she have before her freedom ran out?
There were voices in the other room and the clatter of dishes. Breakfast was here. She couldn’t hide in the bedroom any longer. It was time to go out and beard the proverbial lion in his den. For that she needed a strategy, or, better yet, she’d just borrow his tactics. He wanted her to like him. Was that such a bad idea? Wouldn’t she, too, be served by the concept of liking? Maybe being friends was the preferred strategy here. After all, friends did things for one another and there were things she needed doing before she could leave Venice, before she could truly be free. Who better to do them for her than her new friend, Nolan Gray?
Be careful, her conscience whispered, that you don’t do this because it’s easy. You want to like him and this gives you an excuse. This was your mother’s downfall, she liked attractive men and they all failed her in the end. Nolan Gray might have fished you out of the canal, but he also won you in a card game. How good could a man be who’d entertain such a wager? That was the problem. She didn’t know. But at the moment he was all she had. She did feel a twinge of guilt over what she meant to do. But if he was a gambler, he’d understand. A girl had to use her resources and take her chances where she found them.
The smell of coffee greeted her as she stepped into the other room, feeling conspicuous in Nolan’s shirt when he was fully attired in shirt and waistcoat, breeches and boots. In truth, the shirt covered far more of her than the nightgown had, but then, the playing field had been more equitable when they’d both been in nightwear. But Nolan rose, playing the gentleman, only his eyes betraying his appreciation of her apparel. He was good at hiding his emotions.
‘Coffee?’ He poured her a cup and passed it to her with a smile. ‘There’s toast and butter, a pot of jam, if you like. Help yourself.’ He’d left the sofa empty for her, perhaps anticipating the difficulties of sitting in a shirt. She ended curled up on that sofa, her legs tucked under her, the shirttails tucked modestly about her, and a plate of toast balanced on her lap.
It was a cosy position and she was struck by the domestic tranquillity of their breakfast. Nearby, flames popped occasionally in the fireplace. Nolan sat easy in his chair, one booted leg crossed over the other, his own plate balanced on a knee. Beyond him the light of the grey day filtered through the windows. It was a perfect day for staying inside. If they’d been lovers, perhaps they would have. But Nolan’s attire suggested he at least had other plans.
She took a bite of toast smothered in jam, aware of him studying her. She readied herself. He was going to launch his next salvo. But when it came it wasn’t the question she’d expected.
Nolan took a swallow of coffee and said with all the casualness of someone who was asking about the weather, ‘So, what kind of man sells his daughter’s virginity? And don’t say a desperate one because I already know that.’
Chapter Seven (#ulink_31f6104b-5f82-5fdd-9a35-5af8ecae3bfa)
‘What kind of man buys it?’ she countered, fixing him with her brave hazel gaze. This woman backed down from nothing. She was as confident sitting on the sofa in his borrowed shirt as she was in Venice’s finest ballrooms in a gown worth a fortune. It might be said that clothes made the man. In this case, it was confidence that made the woman. She wore it well, but Nolan was hardly about to come undone over a direct gaze and one uncomfortable question. He was far too experienced for that.
‘Oh, no, you don’t.’ Nolan set aside his plate and took the offensive. Part of him was glad to see she was willing to put up a fight. Still, she would find he was not as easily played as all that. ‘You do not get to answer a question with a question and you absolutely do not get to make me the villain in this scenario.’
‘There can be more than one villain,’ she replied coolly.
‘There may be, but they are not me. I was your best choice at that table.’
‘Were you? That’s an arrogant statement.’
‘I did not ravish you. You are still in possession of your virginity,’ Nolan pointed out, enumerating his evidence on his fingers. ‘I doubt the other men at the table would have allowed you to keep it. Secondly, and more importantly, you are still in possession of the choice regarding who to give that particular feminine jewel to. Thirdly, I offered to set you free of the wager.’ He was well aware she had artfully manoeuvred him into defending himself. This was not what he wanted to discuss. He wanted to discuss the count and whatever arrangement she had with that blackguard.
She arched a dark eyebrow over her coffee, unimpressed with his accomplishments. ‘You are a veritable saint.’
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Bronwyn Scott
Тип: электронная книга
Жанр: Современная зарубежная литература
Язык: на английском языке
Издательство: HarperCollins
Дата публикации: 16.04.2024
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О книге: ‘All gamblers are alike in luck…’Although when Nolan Gray enters a high-stakes game in Venice, facing a ruthless opponent, he’ll need more than just luck. He can’t start losing now…especially when the virginity of the enthralling Gianna Minotti hangs in the balance!Fate is on his side, and Nolan seizes victory. But leaving in a gondola with Gianna and not collecting on his tantalising prize pushes Nolan to his limits! Can he help her claim her freedom when really he wants to claim her for his own?Rakes on TourOutrageous hell-raisers let loose in Europe!