He reached for her and she took a step backward. “No. Don’t. I’m not through. I have character, Michael.”

  “I know you do.”

  “A great deal of it.”

  More than he’d ever imagined.

  “Yes.”

  “I’m not perfect. I gave up perfection when I realized that the only thing it would ever get me was a lonely marriage with an equally perfect husband.” She was shaking with anger, and he reached for her, wanting to pull her into his arms; but she pulled back, refusing to allow him to touch her. “And as for your not being perfect, well, thank God for that. I had a perfect life in my reach once, and it was a crashing bore. Perfect is too clean, too easy. I don’t want perfect any more than I want to be perfect. I want imperfect.

  “I want the man who tossed me over his shoulder in the woods and convinced me to marry him for the adventure of it. I want the man who is cold and hot, up and down. The one who runs a men’s club and a ladies’ club and a casino and whatever else this incredible place is. You think I married you in spite of your imperfections? I married you because of your imperfections, you silly man. Your glorious, unbearably infuriating imperfections.”

  It wasn’t true, of course. She’d married him because she’d had no choice.

  But he was not about to let her go.

  Not after he’d just discovered how wonderful it was to have her in his arms.

  “Penelope?”

  She dropped her hands, and his coat opened, baring one long, narrow strip of skin from neck to knee. “What?” He would have laughed at the peevishness in her tone if he had not been overwhelmed by the way she looked in her stockings and his coat and nothing else. She took a deep breath, the fabric threatening to reveal her glorious breasts.

  “Are you through?”

  “Maybe,” she said, reserving the right to say more.

  “You can be very difficult when you want to be, you know.”

  One of her pretty blond brows rose. “Well. If that is not the pot calling the kettle black, I don’t know what is.”

  He reached for her, and she let him catch her this time. Let him pull her into his arms, pressing her lush, curving body to his. “I am too imperfect for you,” he whispered at her temple.

  “You are perfectly imperfect for me.”

  She was wrong, but he did not want to think on it anymore. Instead, he said, “You are naked in a gaming hell, love.”

  Her reply was muffled against his chest, and he felt the words more than heard them. “I can’t believe it.”

  One of his hands stroked down her back, over the fabric of his coat, and he smiled at the idea that she was wearing his clothes. “I can, my sweet, adventuresome lady.” He kissed the top of her blond head, sliding a hand inside the coat to palm one lovely breast, adoring the shiver that coursed through her at the touch. “I should like for you to be naked beneath my clothes every day.”

  She smiled. “You know I am naked beneath my own clothes every day, do you not?”

  He groaned. “You should not have said such a thing. How am I to do anything but think of you naked from now on?”

  She pulled away with a laugh, and they began to dress, Penelope swatting at Michael’s hands every time he reached for her.

  “I am helping.”

  “You are hindering.”

  She righted the little cream bow at the front of her dress while he tied his cravat without a looking glass.

  He could happily dress with her every day, for the rest of eternity.

  But he wouldn’t.

  Not once she discovers your lies. The whisper echoed through his mind.

  “Is this water?” She pointed to a pitcher standing in the corner next to a washbasin.

  “Yes.”

  She poured water into the bowl and submerged her hands to the wrists. Not washing them, simply, settling them into the cool liquid. He watched her for a long moment as she closed her eyes and took a deep breath. Two. Three.

  She removed her hands and shook off the liquid, turning back to face him. “There’s something I feel I should tell you.”

  In nine years running dice and cards and every other kind of gaming there was, Michael had learned to read faces. He’d learned to identify nervousness and exhilaration and cheating and lying and rage and every other point on the spectrum of human emotion.

  Everything but the emotion that filled Penelope’s gaze—the emotion that lurked beneath the nervousness and the pleasure and the excitement.

  Oddly, it was because he’d never seen it before that he knew precisely what the emotion was.

  Love.

  The thought robbed him of breath and he straightened, consumed all at once with desire and fear and something that he did not want to think on. Did not want to acknowledge.

  He’d told her not to believe in him.

  He’d warned her.

  And for his own sanity, he could not let her tell him that she loved him.

  He found he wanted it too much.

  So he did what he did best. He resisted temptation, approaching her and pulling her into his arms for a quick kiss—a kiss he was desperate to prolong. To enjoy. To turn into something as powerful as the emotion coursing through him. “It’s getting late, darling. No more talk tonight.”

  The love in Penelope’s gaze gave way to confusion, and he was filled with self-loathing.

  Sadly, that, too, was coming to be a familiar emotion.

  A knock sounded on the door, saving him. Michael checked the clock; it was nearly three in the morning, far too late for visitors, which meant only one thing. News.

  He crossed the room quickly and opened the door, reading Cross’s face before the other man had a chance to speak.

  “He is here?”

  Cross’s gaze flickered over Michael’s shoulder to Penelope, then back to Michael, grey and inscrutable. “Yes.”

  He couldn’t look at her. She was close, close enough for her delicate scent, to wrap around him, likely for the last time.

  “Who is here?” she asked, and he didn’t want to answer, even as he knew that she had to know. And that once she did, he would lose her forever.

  He met her gaze, trying his best to be calm and unmoved.

  Remembering the singular goal that he had set for himself a decade earlier.

  “Langford.”

  She stilled as the words crashed through the room. “One week,” she said softly, recalling their agreement before shaking her head. “Michael. Please. Don’t do this.”

  He couldn’t stop himself. It was all he’d ever wanted.

  Until her.

  “Stay here. Someone will take you home.” He left the room, the sound of the door closing behind him echoing like a gunshot in the dark, empty hallway beyond, and with every step he took, he steeled himself against what was to come. Oddly, it was not facing Langford—the man who had ripped his life from him—that required the added strength.

  It was losing Penelope.

  “Michael!” She had followed him into the hallway, and the sound of his name on her lips had him turning back, unable to ignore the anguish there. Wanting desperately, instinctively, to protect her from it.

  To protect her from himself.

  She was racing toward him, fast and furious, and he could not do anything but catch her, lifting her in his arms as her hands clasped his face, and she stared into his eyes. “You don’t have to do this,” she whispered, her thumbs stroking across his cheeks, leaving agonizing tracks. “You have Falconwell . . . and you have The Angel . . . and more than he could ever dream. So much more than anger and vengeance and fury. You have me.” She searched his gaze before finally saying, achingly soft, “I love you.”

  He’d told himself that he did not want the words, but once said, the pleasure that coursed through him at their sound on her lips was nearly unbearable. He closed his eyes and kissed her, deep and soul-searching, wishing to remember the taste of her, the feel of her, the smell of her—of this moment—forever. When he released her lips and returned her to her feet, he took a step back, breathing deep, loving the way her beautiful blue eyes flashed when he touched her.

  He had not touched her enough.

  If he could go back, he would have touched her more.

  I love you.

  The whisper echoed through him, all temptation.

  He shook his head. “You shouldn’t.”

  He turned away, leaving her in the dark hallway, heading to face his past, refusing to look back. Refusing to acknowledge what he was leaving.

  What he was losing.

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Dear M—

  No. No more of this.

  Unsigned

  Needham Manor, January 1830

  Letter destroyed

  Bourne had imagined this moment hundreds of times—thousands of them.

  He’d played the scene over in his mind, entering a private card room where Langford sat, alone and on edge, dwarfed by the sheer size and power of The Angel, the kingdom over which Michael reigned.

  Never once, in all that time, had he imagined he would feel anything but triumph in this moment, when nine years’ worth of anger and frustration finally came to an end. But it was not triumph Michael felt as he opened the door to the luxurious private suite set far from the main floor of the club and met the emotionless gaze of his longtime enemy.

  It was frustration. And anger.

  For even now, nine years later, this man was still fleecing Michael. Tonight, he had robbed him of his future with his wife.

  And it could not be allowed to continue.

  Langford had always loomed large in his memory—bronze skin, white teeth, wide fists—the kind of man who took what he wanted without hesitation. The kind of man who ruined lives without looking back.

  And nearly a decade later, Langford had not changed. He was just as healthy and hale as he’d always been, with a bit more grey hair, but the same thick neck and wide shoulders. The years had been kind to him.

  Michael’s gaze flickered to the place where Langford’s left hand lay flat against the green velvet of the table. He remembered the mannerism, the way that hand would fist and knock against the wood to demand additional cards or to celebrate a win. When Michael was a young man, just learning the tables, he would watch that hand and envy its utter control.

  He sat in the chair directly across from Langford and waited silently.

  Langford’s fingers twitched against the baize. “I object to being forced here in the dead of night by your henchmen.”

  “I did not think you would answer an invitation.”

  “You were correct.” When Michael did not reply, Langford sighed. “I assume you’ve called me here to gloat about Falconwell?”

  “Among other things.” Michael reached into his coat pocket, removed the evidence of Tommy’s birth, running the paper through his fingers.

  “I confess, I was surprised you’d stoop to marrying the Marbury girl, even for Falconwell. She’s not exactly a prize.” He paused. “But the land was the goal, was it not? Well-done. The ends justify the means, I suppose.”

  Michael’s teeth clenched at the words, so close to the way he’d described their marriage at the beginning of this journey. He hated the echo, the reminder that he was just as much of a beast as Langford.

  Don’t do this. Penelope’s words echoed through him, a pleading request, and he stilled, feeling the aging edges of the paper against the pad of his thumb. You are so much more than you think. Michael turned the square of paper over in his hand, considering the words, his wife’s blue eyes pleading with him to be more. Better. Worthy.

  I love you. Her last weapon against his revenge.

  Curiosity made Langford impatient. “Come on, boy. What is it?”

  And with the quick, curt words, Michael was twenty-one again, facing this man, wanting to crush him. Only this time, he had the power to do so. With a flick of a wrist, he let the letter fly across the table with perfect aim.

  Langford captured it, unfolded, read. He did not look up. “Where did you get this?”

  “You may have my lands, but you do not have my power.”

  “It will ruin me.”

  “That is my dearest hope.” Michael waited for the moment of victory. For surprise and regret to flash across the other man’s face before he looked up from the paper and admitted defeat. But when Langford met Michael’s gaze over the yellowed parchment, it was not defeat that shone in his eyes.

  It was admiration. “How long have you been waiting for this moment?”

  Michael shuttered his gaze, forcing himself to lean back in his chair, shielding his surprise. “Since you took everything from me.”

  “Since you lost everything to me,” Langford corrected.

  “I was a child then, with only a handful of games behind me,” Michael said, anger rising. “No longer. I know now that you pushed the game. That you threw it, let me win until it was all there in one enormous bet.”

  “You think I cheated?”

  Michael’s gaze did not waver. “I know you did.”

  A ghost of a smile—enough to prove Michael right—crossed Langford’s lips before he returned his attention to the damning paper. “So now you know. The child was my brother’s whelp, born of a local farmer’s daughter. The woman I married was useless—large enough dowry but unable to birth a child. I paid the girl and took the child as my own. Better false heir than none at all.”

  Tommy had always been different from this man, never as cool, never as calculating. Now it all made sense, and Michael found that somewhere, deep within, buried where he did not think there was emotion to be found, he felt sympathy for the boy who had once been his friend—the boy who had tried so hard to be a son to his father.

  The viscount went on. “There were only a handful of people who were close enough to recognize that my wife never bred.” He lifted the note, a small smile on his lips. “I see now that even they were not to be trusted.”

  “Perhaps they decided it was you who was without honor.”

  One of Langford’s brows rose. “You continue to blame me?”

  “You continue to deserve it.”

  “Come now,” Langford scoffed. “Look around you. You built this place; you rebuilt your life, your fortunes. What would you do if you were forced to give them away? To pass them off to someone who’d never had a hand in their growth? In their success? Are you saying you would not do the very same thing I did?” The older man set the paper to the table. “It would be a lie. You have as little conscience as I, and there’s the proof.”

  He leaned back in his chair. “It’s a shame I was saddled with Tommy and not you; you would have made me a fine son, with how well you learned the lessons I taught you.”

  Michael resisted the urge to recoil at the words, at the implication that he and Langford were similar, even as he recognized their truth. And loathed it.

  His gaze flickered to the note on the table, its weight at once immense and nothing at all. There was a roar in his ears as he registered the importance of what he had done. Of what he was doing.

  Unaware of Michael’s thoughts, Langford said, “Let us come down to business. I still have the rest—everything your father passed to you. Your entire past. You think I didn’t expect you to do something like this?” He reached into the pocket of his coat and withdrew a sheaf of papers. “We’re cut from the same cloth, you and I.” He set the stack on the table. “Is vingt-et-un still your game? My legacy against yours.”

  And when Michael saw it there, laid out on the green baize in calculated clarity, understanding rocketed through him. He’d replayed that fateful night hundreds of times—thousands of them—watching the cards flip over and slide across the baize into their seats, counting the ten, fourteen, twenty-two that had marked the end of his inheritance and his youth.

  And he’d always thought it was the moment that marked the end of everything that was good about him.

  It wasn’t.

  But this would be.

  He thought of Penelope in his arms, her lips soft against his, the hitch in her breath as she begged him not to come here. Not to do this. The way she’d looked him straight in the eye and asked him not to give away his final chance at good—the last vestige of his decency.

  Not to let revenge overshadow love.

  He reached for the stack of deeds on the table, sifting through them, spreading them across the felt. Wales, Scotland, Newcastle, Devon—a collection of houses amassed by generations of marquesses—once so vitally important to him . . . now a collection of brick and mortar.

  Only the past. Not the future.

  Nothing without Penelope.

  What had he done?

  Dear God. He loved her.

  The realization struck him like a blow, utterly out of place, and more powerful than anything else. And he hated himself for not having had the chance to tell her.

  And, as though he’d conjured her up, suddenly she was there, her voice rising from outside the door. “You may attempt to stop me with your silence and your . . . enormity . . . but make no mistake about it, I will enter that room!”

  Michael stood to watch the door of the room spring open, revealing a confused Bruno and, just behind him, an irate Penelope. The guard lifted his hands in a helpless expression that would have amused Michael if they were in a different time and place. Bruno did not seem to understand what to do with this small, strange woman who had the strength of ten men. Of twenty.

  She pushed past him and into the room, chin up, shoulders square, anger and frustration and determination on her lovely face.

  And he’d never wanted her so much in his life.

  But he did not want her anywhere near Langford. He approached her, pulling her aside, and saying quietly, “You shouldn’t be here.”