Lord Lucifer (Lords of the Masquerade #1) - Jade Lee Page 0,2
scent muddied his thoughts, and she was already on fire in her bed?
“Do you?”
“Not just now. I have a little more than a thousand.” He’d been saving up to buy a horse. “But I can turn that into three thousand easily. I’m a good gambler, and so many people are bad at it.”
She stiffened beneath him. “Gambling? You want me to risk my family on gambling?”
“It’s true! How do you think I got a thousand?” He could see that she didn’t believe him, and no wonder. What did she know of the kind of money men threw around simply because they could? “I can,” he insisted. He straightened up off her, though it physically hurt to do so. “Let me prove it.”
“How?”
“I’ll come back in the morning with three thousand pounds. I swear it.” He could do it. It might be tight, but he knew of a few hells where the play was steep. “Wait for me,” he pressed. Then he paused. “And if I show you the money, will you run away with me? Will you refuse to marry him?” He touched her cheek. “Will you be mine?”
“Yes,” she said, the word barely audible. Then she straightened up and slammed her mouth to his. It was all he needed.
He plundered her mouth. And when she gripped his shoulders, he tore himself away. There was too much to do. There would be plenty of time for love after the night’s gambling was done.
So, he went to the window, frowning as he tried to figure out how to wriggle himself back outside without tumbling to his death.
“Don’t be an idiot,” she huffed. “I’ll take you down the back stairs.”
They tiptoed like giggly children down the back stairs. And when they finally reached the doorway, he hauled her close for one last kiss. Her mouth was hot, her body pliant, and he held her so tight, he lifted her off the ground.
“You have bewitched me,” he whispered as he let her go.
“Don’t fail,” she responded. “Please, God, don’t fail.”
“I won’t.”
He didn’t. He spent the night in four different gaming hells. He played upon his wet-behind-the-ears looks. He pretended to be drunk when he wasn’t. And when the players got wise, he slipped out and ran to the next one. And once, he even stole money from a drunkard who had passed out near him.
It was for a good cause, he rationalized, as he became a thief. It was for love and for Diana’s family. And when he got the last pound note clutched into his hands, he ran from the hell while his victim screamed, “You better run, boy, but it won’t help. I’ll find you tomorrow, and then we’ll see.”
He felt the threat settle low in his spine as his feet pounded away. It held real danger, and he knew he could never return to the hells he’d been in tonight. A man could make a lot of money in one night. He had proven that. But it had required him to be ruthless in a way that he despised. He’d taken money from friends, acquaintances, and idiots. It left him feeling filthy and ashamed, but he’d gotten what he wanted.
Three thousand pounds.
Wonderful, except he would never be able to do that again. The gamblers were on to him. The monied people and the thieves. He needed to get out of London immediately, which would be fine, except how would he support Diana and her family in the future? How would he cover the other two thousand pounds they needed to survive? This year and then the next and the next?
He didn’t know. And he sure as hell couldn’t marry her until he had an answer. Cold logic in the morning had replaced last night’s romantic passion.
He didn’t go to her bedroom that morning. He didn’t drop on his knees and shower her with pound notes as he’d envisioned throughout the night. And he certainly didn’t stop her from dully speaking her vows to her new husband, though he stood at the back of the church and tried not to weep in despair.
Instead, he used the money to buy a commission and entered the military that very day.
That should have been the end of it. That should have put paid to any relationship between him and Diana. Until the morning, twelve years later, when her brother Elliott walked into his bedroom and said, “I need your help. Diana’s in trouble.”
Chapter Two
Diana, Lady Dunnamore, smiled as she heard a bird call outside