Two Sinful Secrets (3 page)

“It is too crowded here,” Lord Hammond said. “So I propose we make this simple. We
each draw a card, and high draw wins.”

Intriguing.
Sophia did like a high-stakes game—usually. “And what are the stakes?”

“I will wager five hundred pounds,” he said easily, as if that vast amount were mere
pocket change. For him it probably was.

But it made Sophia catch her breath.
Five hundred pounds.
Surely enough to get her home to England and help her set up a new life, a new business.
One where she wouldn’t have to whore, or marry, again, or crawl back to her family
and beg for forgiveness. One where she could be independent. All on the draw of one
card.

But…

“I cannot wager such a sum in return,” she said cautiously.

“I would not expect you to, my dear Mrs. Westman,” Lord Hammond said with a smile
Sophia did not like at all. “All I ask is that you walk with me in the garden, and
perhaps accompany me to my suite. I have some paintings I recently acquired which
might interest you.”

Paintings her foot. Sophia took his meaning quite clearly, for he was not the first
to propose such an arrangement. She let her skirts drop, concealing her shoes, and
put on her sternest, most governessish expression. “Lord Hammond, how very shocking
you are.”

He laughed as he shuffled the cards. The gold signet ring on his finger gleamed. “And
I fear missishness does not suit you, Mrs. Westman. I would never have thought you
a lady to back down from a dare.”

He was too right about that, Sophia thought wryly. She had always been too ready to
run headlong into a dare. Anything her family didn’t want her to do she had always
wanted to do all the more. It was what had led her here. She should probably get up
and march out of the casino—straight into homelessness. And it looked as if it might
rain later, which would make being on the streets even more unpleasant.

Despite herself, she was very tempted by the wager
Lord Hammond offered. With one turn of a card, her troubles would be over—or at least
postponed. Or she could be in even more trouble than before. She shivered to think
of Lord Hammond’s hands on her, of those cold eyes looking at her naked body.

But there were no other promising games in the casino tonight, no other prospects.
And she was down to her last farthing. That gnawing feeling of desperation deep inside
had become all too familiar. It was time to leap before she looked.

“Very well, Lord Hammond,” she said. She struggled to smile and keep her voice steady.
“I accept your wager.”

“Splendid, Mrs. Westman. You are ever intriguing. I knew you would not fail me.” Lord
Hammond raised his hand in an imperious gesture and a footman hurried over with a
sealed pack of cards. As Sophia watched, Lord Hammond broke the seal and shuffled
the cards. He laid the neat stack before her. “Ladies draw first.”

Sophia stared down at the cards. They looked so innocent, mere printed pasteboard.
She handled such things every night. Somehow she felt as if they would come to life
and bite her when she touched them. She had truly fallen low.

She took a deep breath to steady herself and reached for the top card. Shockingly,
her hand did not shake. She flipped over the card, her stomach in knots.

Queen of diamonds. Not bad. But it could be beat.

Lord Hammond nodded and reached for the next card. Sophia held her breath. It seemed
as if time itself slowed down as he flipped it over. All the noise around her, the
laughter, the chatter, the clatter of the roulette wheel, faded in her ears. She swallowed
hard and looked down.

The six of clubs. She had won. She was five hundred pounds richer. A shocked laugh
escaped her lips.

“Well,” Lord Hammond said. “It appears luck favors you tonight, Mrs. Westman.” His
voice was low and tight, and filled with a barely leashed raw fury. She had never
heard such a tone from the suave, cool man before.

She glanced up to find him staring at her with burning dark eyes. A dull red flush
spread over his face and his hand clenched in a fist on the table. Another shiver
slid down her spine, banishing the rush of victorious relief. Lord Hammond was not
a man used to being thwarted.

“It would appear so,” she answered slowly.

Lord Hammond nodded and waved the footman forward again. He spoke a curt word in the
liveried man’s ear and sent him scurrying away. “I have sent for the key to my safe.
You will understand, Mrs. Westman, that I do not carry such a sum on me.”

“Of course not,” Sophia murmured, still half-stunned by what had happened.

“Will you have a glass of wine with me while we wait? I would consider it more than
compensation for my sad loss.”

Sophia did
not
want to have a drink with him, or sit here any longer than she had to. His smile
had become too congenial, too charming, and those shivers along her spine had become
even colder. She had the urge to leap to her feet and run from the casino. But she
did have to wait for her money.

She swept a glance around the lavish room. It seemed even more crowded, and the laughter
was even louder thanks to the freely flowing champagne. She surely couldn’t get into
too much trouble there.

“Thank you,” she said. “A glass of champagne would be delightful.”

Lord Hammond rose smoothly from the table and offered her his arm. Sophia had grown
accustomed to acting in the last few months; the life of a gambler, traveling from
one spa town to another, demanded constant deception. Yet it took everything she had
to stand and slide her hand onto Lord Hammond’s sleeve. She shook out her heavy skirts
and gave him a smile as he led her from the main salon into the bar area.

It was no less crowded there. A throng of people, like a merry, fluttering horde of
brightly clad butterflies, gathered around the gleaming white marble bar. The gold-framed
mirrors on the wall reflected them back in an endless sparkling vista. The barmaids
scurried to serve them all.

Lord Hammond was immediately given glasses of the finest pale golden champagne. He
handed one to Sophia and held up his own in salute.

“To your great good fortune, Mrs. Westman,” he said. “What shall you do now?”

Sophia shrugged and sipped at her wine. “Try another town, I suppose. This one does
not suit me so well as I had hoped.”

“The sad memories of Captain Westman’s demise, I would imagine,” he said, all smooth,
polite conversation. “But this place will be dull without you.”

“Dull?” Sophia laughed and gestured with her glass at the crowded room. “I shall not
be missed one jot.”

“I will miss you very much.” He studied her closely over the edge of his glass until
she had to glance away. “I do wish you would reconsider my offer, Mrs. Westman.
I could certainly give you far more than five hundred pounds.”

Sophia fidgeted with her glass and studied the array of bottles behind the bar. Where
on earth was that blasted safe key? She wanted to be far away from there as quickly
as possible. “Your offer of a walk in the garden, Lord Hammond?” she said, trying
to feign wide-eyed innocence.

“Oh, come, Mrs. Westman. I have made no secret of my admiration for you,” he said,
a note of impatience in his voice. “I am a wealthy man. I could give you whatever
you wanted.”

Sophia wondered what Lady Hammond, rumored to be an invalid back in England, thought
of that. But the poor woman was probably quite used to it all. Sophia never wanted
something like that for herself. She only wanted to be her own woman at long last.
Free to make her own way, see the world on her own terms…

And perhaps find another man who made her feel like Dominic St. Claire once had. A
man who, unlike Dominic, would think her the only woman he wanted.

“You are so kind to flatter me like that, Lord Hammond,” she answered carefully. “But
I am so recently widowed. I need time to mourn properly. I couldn’t possibly think
of a man other than Captain Westman just yet.”

His eyes narrowed. “Quite understandable, my dear. But I hope when you are ready to
cast off your widow’s weeds you will think of me.” Suddenly he reached out to lightly
stroke a fingertip over the ribbon at her throat.

Sophia flinched and fell back a step before she could stop herself. Lord Hammond gave
a humorless laugh.

“You deserve to wear diamonds and pearls,” he said. “I could give you that. Just remember,
my dear. One day you
are going to need me even more than you do now, and I will always be waiting.”

Sophia desperately hoped not. She turned to set her glass down on the bar, and to
her relief she saw the footman returning at last with the safe key. Lord Hammond brushed
away the man’s apologies for the delay and took Sophia’s elbow in his hand to lead
her out of the bar.

“Come, Mrs. Westman, let us collect your winnings,” Lord Hammond said as they made
their way through the soaring domed foyer and down the marble steps to the lower level
where the wealthier patrons kept their guarded safes. Lord Hammond was now all brisk
efficiency, leading her along without another word or untoward touch, but Sophia couldn’t
shake away that urge to run. Especially as the noise of the casino faded behind them
and there was only the whooshing echo of their footsteps on the cold stone floor.

He led her past the guards and along the row of iron safes until he found the one
he sought. He turned the key in the lock and swung open the heavy door. Sophia glimpsed
bags of coins, stacks of bank notes, and black velvet jewel cases. It was a veritable
Aladdin’s cave of riches, but she had only a glimpse before he hastily removed one
of the stacks of notes, put them into a bag, and pressed it into her hands.

“There you are, Mrs. Westman, your fair winnings,” he said. “Feel free to count it.”

Sophia shook her head and held on to the bag tightly. It felt like such a slight thing
in her hands, yet it was her salvation. “I trust you, Lord Hammond.” As far as she
could throw him. But yet she doubted he would cheat on a gambling debt, even one to
a woman.

“Just remember my offer, my dear. I will be waiting.” He reached for her free hand
and raised it to his lips for a lingering kiss.

Sophia could bear his touch no longer. She snatched back her hand and spun around
on her heel to hurry out of the casino. She pushed past the people in the foyer and
rushed out of the doors and into the gardens to the public walkway. She didn’t stop
until she was in her hotel room with the door locked behind her.

She dropped the bag onto the end of her narrow bed and fell down onto the pillows
with a sigh as her gown billowed around her like a black cloud. Only one more night
here in this cursed place, and then she could catch the morning train somewhere else.
One more night with the likes of Lord Hammond just beyond the door, waiting to snatch
her up when she stumbled. One more night not knowing here her next meal was coming
from.

She was free. Almost.

Sophia rolled over and reached beneath her pillow to draw out a book. It was quite
old, bound in cracked brown leather with the pages yellowing at the edges. But that
book had been one of her best companions since she left home with Jack all those long
months ago. Every night she read a precious entry before she went to sleep and she
didn’t feel so very alone.

She opened it where she had left off, carefully turning the brittle pages closely
written in faded brown ink in a careful hand. But first she smoothed her fingertip
over the inscription on the first page.

Mary Huntington, Her Book, Gifted in the Year 1665.

Mary Huntington, the first Duchess of Carston, and a woman completely unknown in Sophia’s
family. Unlike
every other ancestor on the family tree, there were no portraits of her on the walls,
no heirloom jewels that had once belonged to her. Sophia had never heard of her until
she found this dusty book on a neglected shelf in her grandfather’s library one boring,
rainy Christmas. When she began to read, it was as if Mary had come back to life and
begun to speak to her. As if Mary were a long-lost friend, a woman just as impulsive
and wild-hearted as Sophia was.

A long-lost friend with a sad tale to tell. Mary was terribly in love with her handsome
husband, but miserably unhappy. He left her at their country house when he went off
to Charles II’s merry Court, and Mary wrote of her loneliness and longing, all the
storms of her emotions, as well as the ways she kept herself busy in the country.
Sophia felt as if Mary was reaching out to her over the decades. She took the diary
with her wherever she went, and somehow she never felt alone.

She never wanted to be like Mary, with her whole life, all her emotions and everything
she was, wrapped up in a man. Sophia had fallen prey to such fairy-tale dreams before,
and she couldn’t do it ever again.

Sophia traced a gentle touch over the worn leather cover. “Everything will be fine
now, Mary,” she whispered. “I can go home and start again. Things will be better in
England.”

If only she could make herself believe that. England had seemed such a distant dream
ever since she made the romantic, foolish, impulsive decision to run off with Jack.
Her sheltered, pampered life there hadn’t seemed real. But the England she was going
to now, and the life she would make for herself, would be very different.

Sophia slid the diary back under her pillow and sat up to reach for the bag of bank
notes. They were all there, five hundred pounds worth. She fanned them out and looked
down at them as she tried to make herself believe they were real.

As she started to take them from the bag to examine them more closely, there was a
sudden noise at her door. Startled, Sophia dropped the bag and sat up straight, every
fiber of her body tense and alert. The doorknob rattled as someone tried to turn it.
When it held, there was a scraping noise against the old wood, as if that person attempted
to pick the lock.