Julian was shaking his head at the memory when his gloved fingers slipped through a hole in the silk lining of his coat pocket. He withdrew a single dull shilling and held it aloft.
“Adrian always did say I had the very luck of the devil,” he murmured.
But it was the devil who had been unlucky on this day, he thought ruefully. Had circumstances been different, the old goat would have been standing at the gates of Hell, tapping his cloven hoof with anticipation at the exact moment Wallingford had fired his pistol.
How odd that the moment had brought with it not the stench of brimstone, but a whiff of heaven. It wasn’t the first time he’d been haunted by that particular scent. The elusive fragrance had once stalked him down a narrow alley in Cairo, overpowering the exotic aromas of cumin and turmeric. It had wafted through the soot-stained window of a Paris garret, making his body burn with hunger. And on a rain-drenched battlefield in Burma while his nostrils were still choked with the smell of blood and smoke, he had scented it on the wind, the fragrance so dear and familiar it had made his gut clench with longing for a home he would never know.
It smelled nothing like the gardenia- and jasmine-drenched perfumes of the women who so frequently provided him with both solace and sustenance. This was the sweet soap-and-rosemary smell of a young woman’s skin—innocence and allure mingled into an intoxicating brew. It was the scent of a girl’s silky dark curls brushing his cheek as she leaned across him to turn the pages of his pianoforte music before favoring him with a mischievous smile.
As he had so many times before, Julian forced himself to ruthlessly banish the image. Flipping the coin to the opposite hand, he sauntered through the falling night. He might not be able to afford more than a single hand of cards, but perhaps he could coax some pretty bit of muslin into taking pity on him.
Turning up the collar of his greatcoat to ward off the icy flecks of snow, he crossed the street and ducked into one of the Covent Garden gambling hells disreputable enough to welcome even the likes of him.
Julian did have the very luck of the devil. Less than two hours later, he was sitting behind a fat pile of winnings at the brag table. Employing a lethal mix of charm, guile, and skill, he’d managed to parlay that single shilling into a shimmering heap of coins and pound notes. It might not be enough to stave off Wallingford and his threats of debtor’s prison for more than a day, but it was enough to ensure that he wouldn’t be spending the night alone.
Or hungry.
He gently rubbed the lower back of the dark-haired, sloe-eyed beauty perched on his knee, earning a jealous look from the golden-haired minx who had draped herself over his shoulders like an ermine stole. Every time he turned his head, he was nearly overcome by the stench of the cheap lavender water she had used to wash away the scent of the last gambler she had accompanied upstairs.
While the other three men at the table watched, unable to hide their hopeful expressions, his pale fingers flicked over the cards with negligent grace, fanning them out to reveal yet another winning hand.
One of the men groaned while another tossed down his cards in disgust. “Damn it all, Kane! Your luck is positively supernatural!”
“So they tell me,” Julian murmured as the men snatched up their beaver top hats and walking sticks and quit the table, leaving more than a week’s wages behind them.
Absently stroking the brunette’s rounded hip, Julian settled back in his chair and stretched out his long legs. Peering through the haze of cigar and cheroot smoke, he searched for his next victims. Most of the club’s patrons had exhausted their welcomes—and their credit—at the more reputable establishments like White’s and Boodle’s. A palpable air of desperation clung to them, similar to what Julian had witnessed in the hashish and opium dens of Istanbul and Bangkok. Their fingers twitched and their eyes gleamed as they waited for the next play. It shouldn’t prove too difficult to lure a pair of overextended merchants and the bastard son of some impoverished nobleman into his snare.
“Why don’t ye quit the cards and play with me for a while, guv’nor?” the brunette crooned, wiggling deeper into the cup of his lap.
The blonde leaned over his shoulder to pour him a fresh glass of port from the half-empty bottle on the table. She batted her fawn-colored lashes at him, pressing her ample breasts against the muscled contours of his upper arm. “If ye play yer cards right, luv, ye can win the both of us for the night.”
Julian shifted in his chair. Their efforts were undeniably…stirring, but he wasn’t quite ready to abandon the table. “Patience, my sweets,” he said. “At the moment luck is my only mistress, and I’ll be damned if I’ll leave her to a cold and empty bed when she’s still warm and willing.” While the blonde gave his earlobe a nip of protest, he soothed the brunette’s pout by planting a lingering kiss on her rouged lips.
Someone cleared their throat.
There was such a stinging note of disapproval in the sound that Julian barely resisted the urge to jerk to attention like a guilty schoolboy caught at some mischief. He slowly lifted his head to find a woman standing just behind the chair directly across from him.
No, not a woman, but a lady, he corrected himself, his gaze sweeping from the burgundy of her mink-trimmed velvet pelisse to the feathered bonnet perched atop her upswept coils of gleaming sable hair. A bulging satin reticule dangled from her arm, the pouch’s ribbons drawn tightly closed over its mouth. The exquisite cut and quality of her garments presented a startling contrast to the shabby finery of most of the club’s patrons. A glowing halo seemed to surround her, separating her from the cigar smoke and raucous laughter that filled the room. From the corner of his eye, Julian could see her already garnering other glances—some curious, some wary, others openly predatory.
They’d seen her kind here before. Wealthy ladies with an insatiable appetite for deep play. Since the fair sex wasn’t even allowed in the more reputable clubs that their husbands frequented, they were forced to seek their satisfaction in hells such as this. They were so in thrall to the thrill of the game that they were willing to risk their reputations and their fortunes on one fickle roll of the dice or turn of a card.
More often than not, a lady would play until every last coin of her blunt was gone, leaving her with only one way to pay off her debts. For some reason, Julian couldn’t bear the thought of this woman being forced to accompany some gloating gambler to one of the rooms upstairs. Couldn’t stomach the image of her being shoved to her knees and stripped of that ridiculous bonnet by his fumbling hands.
The net veil attached to its sweeping brim shadowed her eyes and gave her an irresistible aura of mystery. All he could see was the curve of a dimpled cheek, a pointed chin that boded a heart-shaped face, and a pair of lush lips perfectly fashioned for kissing and other even more illicit pleasures.
With some difficulty, he tugged his gaze away from her mouth only to have it settle on the burgundy velvet ribbon she wore around her throat as a choker; her long, graceful throat where a pulse, nearly invisible to the naked eye, danced to each throbbing beat of her heart. Julian jerked his hungry gaze away before he could betray himself. Bringing the glass to his lips, he took a deep swallow of the port, knowing it to be a pale substitute for what he craved.
“Might I have a word with you?” she asked, her voice low and rich.
He flicked a lazy glance her way, but before he could respond, the brunette snapped, “Ye ought to address ’im as ‘sir’! ’Im’s a knight, ’e is, knighted by the king ’isself. A real ’ero.”
“My ’ero,” the blonde purred, slipping a hand into the open throat of his shirt and raking her crimson nails through the crisp whorls of his chest hair.
Those lovely lips tightened with distaste. Or some other emotion Julian couldn’t quite read.
“Very well…sir. I was wondering if I might have a word with you,” she repeated, her scornful tone dismissing his companions. “In private.”
It was the most intriguing proposition he’d received all nigh
t. She must be seeking more than just the thrill of the game. He’d encountered her kind before as well, in nearly every city around the world. Women possessed of a hunger as unholy as his own. Women who recognized and deliberately sought out creatures like him, courting danger and death as if they were the most accomplished of lovers.
Silently cursing the ghost of his scruples, he said, “I’m afraid I can’t help you, miss. As you can see, my attentions are already”—he slid his hand from the brunette’s hip to the rounded curve of her thigh—“occupied.”
“Ye’d best scurry back to yer fine carriage, m’lady,” the brunette said. “A great wolf like this one would gobble ye down in one bite.”
The golden-haired wench looped her arms around his neck. “’E needs a woman, not a lady.”
“Or two women,” the brunette countered, earning a throaty laugh from her companion.
Taking another sip of the port to quench his regret, Julian waited for the woman to turn and flee into the night.
Instead those lush lips curved into the sweetest of smiles. “I hate to deprive you of such scintillating company, but I really must insist.”
Julian glanced around the club, keenly aware that their exchange was beginning to garner more than casual interest. “This is no place for a woman like you. Why don’t you go home before your husband wakes up and realizes you’ve crept out of his bed?” He arched the dark wing of one brow before leveling his iciest look at her, the one that had been known to freeze grown men in their tracks. “If you linger, I’m afraid you’ll end up with nothing but regrets.”
She lifted her chin, her smile fading. “Are you threatening me, sir?”
“If you’d like, you can take it as a warning.”
“And if I don’t choose to heed your warning?”
“Then you’re a bloody little fool,” he said, making no apology for his crude language.
“I’m not leaving until I get what I came here for. You owe me and I’ve come to collect.” Revealing the tiniest crack in her composure, she reached up with trembling hands and drew off her bonnet.
For one fleeting second, Julian was almost thankful he was a vampire because it took a supernatural effort to keep his features schooled in indifference. She was, beyond the shadow of a doubt, the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. The sable curls piled atop her head were matched by the graceful arch of her brows and impossibly thick lashes that ringed eyes the same dark blue as the Aegean Sea at midnight. The delicate bones of her face were narrow at the chin and broad at the cheek. Those cheeks were blessed with a hint of natural color, as if someone had taken a rose petal and lightly dusted it over her satiny skin. She possessed a natural sophistication that all of the expensive powders and rouges in the world couldn’t duplicate. Her mouth tilted upward slightly at the corners, just enough to make a man wonder if she was laughing with him or at him.
And all Julian could think as he faced this paragon of feminine beauty was that he wished she’d put her damned hat back on. Without the veil to hide her eyes, her gaze was too frank. Too challenging. Too blue. Desperate to escape her presence for reasons even he couldn’t fathom, he surged to his feet, nearly dumping the sputtering brunette onto the floor.
He swirled the last of the port around the bottom of the glass before bringing it to his lips. “You can’t be one of my creditors, my dear, because I’m sure I’d remember dunning someone as lovely as you,” he said, giving the word an inflection that was impossible to ignore. “And if you’re not one of my creditors, then I suggest you step out of my way because I don’t owe you so much as the time of day.”
Returning the glass to the table with a forceful thump, he claimed the brunette’s hand and took a step toward the stairs.
“That’s where you’re wrong, Mr. Kane.” Her fingers steady this time, she reached up, jerked off the velvet choker and tossed it on the table as if it were a wager he could never hope to answer.
Julian froze in his tracks, mesmerized by the sight of that graceful throat. A throat that should have been as creamy and flawless as the rest of her, but was instead marred by the faded scars of two distinct puncture wounds.
As Julian lifted his disbelieving gaze to meet the defiant blue of Portia Cabot’s eyes, he knew his luck had finally run out.
Three
He hadn’t recognized her.
Julian Kane had looked right at her with the same burning dark eyes that had haunted her dreams for the past five years and betrayed nothing more than the faintest flicker of interest. Or was it annoyance?
Apparently their time together had meant so little to him that he barely remembered her. And why should he? Portia thought. In the years since he’d been gone, he’d probably had dozens—she stole a bitter glance at the blowsy brunette still clinging to his hand—no, hordes of other women only too eager to help erase her from his memory. Why should he remember one awkward seventeen-year-old girl who had blushed and stammered and practically thrown herself at him every time he sauntered into a room?
As the initial rush of hurt passed, Portia had to fight the urge to fly into a towering rage. Despite her boast to Adrian that she was no longer a child, she wanted nothing more than to toss her lovely bonnet to the floor and jump up and down on it.
“Bright Eyes?” Julian whispered, his handsome face a gratifying study in shock and confusion.
“Don’t call me that,” she snapped, suddenly despising the endearment. If he tried to tweak her nose, she was going to bite his fingers.
He cast a desperate glance around them, as if becoming aware of the squalor of their surroundings for the very first time. “What in the name of God are you doing in a hell like this?”
“Where better to look for a missing devil?” she retorted.
They were beginning to attract an audience. Several of the seedier-looking men were already edging nearer, almost as if they scented blood in the air.
“If the lady’s lookin’ for a game,” called out a hulking chap with a red-veined nose and hands as meaty as hams, “I’m ready to play.”
“Big Jim is always ready,” someone else shouted, nudging the man next to him. “That’s ’ow ’e ended up with twelve brats and only two o’ them on ’is poor wife.”
Raucous laughter greeted his words, but there was no mistaking its ugly undertone. As Julian dropped the brunette’s hand and advanced toward her, Portia took a step backward, feeling a tiny thrill of alarm.
It seemed she had finally succeeded in getting his attention.
His stride was as smooth and lethal as any predator’s. Before she could protest, he had seized her hand in a crushing grip.
“Ow!” she muttered, trying to twist away.
“Sorry,” he mumbled beneath his breath, gentling his grip but refusing to yield his claim on her hand. “Sometimes I forget my own strength.”
That strength was in full evidence as he swung her around as gracefully as if they were waltzing across a ballroom floor and tucked her back against his broad chest.
As they faced the group of men who seemed to be rapidly devolving into a pack, Julian called out, “I’m afraid she’s not looking for a game, lads. She’s looking for me.” He closed his hands gently over her shoulders and nuzzled her hair, his melodic baritone striking a pitch perfect note between rakish and sheepish. “And she’s no lady. She’s my wife.”
Sympathetic groans rippled through the crowd. It obviously wasn’t the first time an irate wife had marched into the club to drag her husband home. The men gazed at her with new respect, some of them even reaching up to doff their caps. But Portia was distracted from all of that by the disconcerting tickle of Julian’s nose grazing her earlobe. She would have almost sworn he was sniffing her.
Determined to prove she wasn’t quite as helpless—or as witless—as he believed her to be, she resisted the urge to stomp on his instep and twisted around to give him a dazzling smile instead. “When I awoke to find you gone from my bed, I couldn’t help but worry, darling.” She patted
the ruffled shirtfront peeping out from the deep V of his waistcoat. “I know you promised me your French pox was all healed up, but you can never be too careful with those weeping sores.”
The men’s groans were even more sympathetic this time. The brunette gasped in outrage, then seized the sputtering blonde’s hand. Both of the women went flouncing toward the stairs, shooting Julian disgusted looks over their shoulders.
Julian’s eyes narrowed on her face even as he slid one arm around her waist, drawing the lower half of her body flush against his. Keenly aware of the dangerously snug cut of his trousers, she tried to wiggle an inch of distance between them, but her struggles only deepened his smirk.
“Your concern is most touching, my love,” he said. “And how fortuitous that you should appear just as I was beginning to wonder where my next meal was coming from.”
His lips parted, giving her a teasing glimpse of his fangs. Fangs that only lengthened and sharpened when he was hungry. Or aroused. Portia swallowed. Perhaps she had been unwise to bait him. If Adrian and Caroline were right and he had given up on the search for his soul, he was nothing more to her now than a dangerous stranger. And she was nothing more to him than a particularly juicy morsel.
She forced herself to give his chest another wifely pat, keenly aware of the rock-hard muscles beneath her gloved hand. “If you wish to play another hand of cards, sweeting, I’ll hurry home and rouse the maid from her bed to fix you a midnight supper.”
The corner of his mouth quirked upward in a knowing smile. “Nonsense, pet. I do believe you’ve roused an appetite that only you can satisfy.” His long, sooty lashes swept downward as he leaned toward her. Too late, Portia realized that he had no intention of tweaking her nose.
She opened her mouth to protest but his lips were already there, sweeping over hers like molten velvet. The shock was so great that she might have jerked away were it not for the powerful hand that glided up her nape, the strong, sure fingers that wound their way through her upswept curls until she was as bound to him as any slave girl to her master.