Then Came You (The Gamblers #1)(6)

“Damnation!” Lily exploded, using her favorite curse. Zachary winced but remained in his chair. In astonishment, Lily realized that his need was that great, his hope that stubborn. And she, of all people, should understand the hell it was to be separated from the one you loved. Slowly she went to him and pressed a kiss to his forehead, smoothing his hair back as if he were a little boy. “Forgive me,” she muttered remorsefully. “I’m a selfish wretch.”

“No,” he said in confusion. “No, you’re—”

“I am, I’m impossible. Of course I’ll help you, Zachary. I always repay my debts, and this has been long outstanding.” Suddenly she leapt away and strode around the room with renewed energy, chewing on her knuckles as if she were a cat frantically grooming itself. “Now let me think…let me think…”

Dazed by her swift change of mood, Zachary sat there and watched silently.

“I’ll have to meet Raiford,” she finally said. “I’ll assess the situation for myself.”

“But I’ve already told you what he’s like.”

“I must form my own impression of him. If I find that Raiford is neither as cruel nor as horrid as you paint him, I’ll have to let the matter alone.” Her small fingers laced together and she flexed them up and down, as if making them more limber before seizing the reins of a palfrey and charging off on a hunting course. “Go back to the country, Zach, and I will notify you when I’ve made a decision.”

“What if you discover that I’m right about him? What then?”

“Then,” she said pragmatically, “I’ll do whatever I can to help you get Penny.”

Chapter 2

The lady’s maid entered the room with an armload of evening finery. “No, Annie, not the pink gown,” Lily said, gesturing over her shoulder. “Tonight I want something more dashing. Something wicked.” She sat at her dressing table, peering into a gilt-framed oval mirror and running her fingers through her unruly sable curls.

“The blue with the slash-and-puff sleeves and the low neck?” Annie suggested, her round face wreathed in a smile. Born and reared in the country, she had a fascination for all the sophisticated styles to be found in London.

“Perfect! I always win more when I wear that one. All of the gentlemen stare at my bosom instead of concentrating on their cards.”

Annie chuckled and went in search of the gown, while Lily tied a silver and sapphire bandeau around her forehead. Artfully she coaxed a few curls to fall over the sparkling ribbon. She smiled into the mirror, but it looked rather like a grimace. The daring grin she had once used to great effect had disappeared. Lately she couldn’t seem to manufacture anything but a poor imitation. Perhaps it was the strain she had been living with for so long.

Lily frowned at her reflection ruefully. Were it not for Derek Craven’s friendship, she would have become far more bitter and hardened by now. Ironic, that the most cynical man she had ever known had helped her to retain her last few shreds of hope.

Lily knew that most of the ton believed that she was having an affair with Derek. She was not surprised by such speculation—Derek was not the sort of man who had platonic relationships with women. But there was no romantic attachment between them and there never would be. He had never even made an attempt to kiss her. Of course, it would be impossible to convince anyone else of that, for they were seen together, cup-and-can, in their favorite haunts, places that ranged from the most prized seats at the opera to the dingiest Covent Garden drinking establishments.

Derek never asked to visit Lily’s London terrace, and she did not invite him. There were certain lines they did not cross. Lily liked the arrangement, for it kept other men from making unwanted advances to her. No one would dare intrude on what was considered to be Derek Craven’s territory.

There were things about Derek that Lily had come to admire over the past two years—his strength and utter lack of fear. Of course, he had his faults. He was lost to sentiment. He loved money. The clink of coins was music to him, sweeter than any sound a violin or piano could produce. Derek had no taste for paintings or sculpture, but the perfect shape of a die—that he appreciated. As well as his lack of cultural refinement, Lily also had to admit that Derek was selfish to his very marrow—the reason, she suspected, that he had never fallen in love. He would never be able to put another’s needs before his own. But if he had been less selfish, if he had possessed a sensitive and kind nature, his childhood would have destroyed him.

Derek had confessed to Lily that he had been born in a drainpipe and abandoned by his mother. He had been raised by pimps, prostitutes, and criminals who had shown him the darkest side of life. In his youth he had made money by robbing graves, but found his stomach was too unsteady for it. Later he had turned to laboring on the docks—shoveling dung, sorting fish, whatever would yield a coin. When he was still just a boy, a high-born lady had caught sight of him from her carriage as he carried boxes of empty bottles out of a gin shop. In spite of his unkempt and filthy appearance, something about his looks had appealed to her, and she had invited him into her carriage.

“It’s a lie,” Lily had interrupted in the middle of that particular story, watching Derek with wide eyes.

“It’s the truf,” he countered lazily, relaxing before the fire in his apartments, stretching his long legs. With his black hair and tanned face, and features that were neither chiseled nor coarse but somewhere in between, he was handsome…almost. His strong white teeth were slightly snaggled, giving him the appearance of a friendly lion when he smiled. Nearly irresistible, that smile, although it never reached his hard green eyes. “She took me in ’er carriage, she did, an’ brung me to ’er ’ome in London.”