Her brows furrowed at his s.h.i.+fted piece, and she furiously looked at the board for a few intense seconds, trying to figure out his game.
He spoke to keep her off-balance. "I"m so pleased you decided to play."
She studied the board. "For the relief of one of my father"s debts? And in a way that might mitigate the one he entangled me in for tonight? The irony of it was too much to resist."
That wasn"t the only reason she was playing. He knew it even if she was as yet unwilling to admit it.
"If your father"s debts were suddenly to disappear, what do you think would happen to you?" he asked in a deliberately idle manner.
She gave a short, bitter laugh. "My father"s aims wouldn"t change. Only his timetable. Still, room to breathe-"
She shot him a sharp look, cutting off the admission.
Come, come, he internally coaxed. Bare all your secrets.
But she clamped her lips together and moved another piece. A safer move.
"You have the power, Charlotte, you should use it."
She narrowed her eyes on him. "Spoken like a man."
He shrugged. "Your father can"t force you to marry. You can run off to Gretna Green with some puppy barely able to lace himself, stars in his eyes."
She gave a rough laugh. "And do what? Live disgraced in the country?"
"I"m told that love overcomes all obstacles."
"Yes, until disillusionment sets in."
He tried not to let the satisfaction show on his face. A little more, give me just a little more to discover exactly who you are. "Quite bitter of you."
"Love is wonderful for those who can afford the pleasure of it." She tried valiantly, vainly, to cover the wistfulness in her voice with sarcasm. But the admission of it wrapped around him. "However, my father would turn such treachery against-"
She roughly pushed a piece forward, cutting herself off again.
He raised a brow in question to her unfinished sentence, but he didn"t need to hear the answer. Based on what Bennett Chatsworth had offered him for this night instead, he could guess. He moved his next piece automatically, still watching her.
She suddenly looked at the board, then at him, eyes narrowed. She tapped the edges of her fingernails against the table. Obviously trying to figure out how to slow the pace of the game, for they were barreling through.
He"d let her slow it down, and the game in front of them would play until dawn, all while he was coaxing secret after secret from her.
The games she should really be worried about were just beginning.
He smiled, patiently waiting.
Everything in Charlotte responded to that smile-excitement and alarm.
He seemed far from a patient, strategic type, so why then was he acting like one? She had thought at first that he would be reckless, making moves with little regard. And indeed his moves seemed that way. Quick and without thought. But the way the play was progressing spoke to something else entirely. It wasn"t patience. He was playing a game that was far deeper than simple chess.
And he was talented enough to know his moves-and hers-far in advance. That he could guess at her strategy-strategy she rarely employed, for she was usually a safe, rote player-terrified something deep inside of her.
Excited something far deeper. The volatile mixture seizing her.
Knowing eyes pinned her, lips curved. Knowing that she was out of sorts. "You do not seek the intimacy that love might gain you?" he asked, silk and gravel in his voice. "Above and beyond the consequences of your actions? Is it the thought of true intimacy that frightens you?" He asked it nonchalantly, moving a p.a.w.n.
She moved her remaining bishop in retaliation. "Frightened of intimacy? Something which can be so easily bartered and exchanged?"
"Can it?" He looked amused, but there was a hardness to his eyes. "If I were to take you to bed now-throw you upon the covers and steal your virginity, do you think that would connote intimacy?"
She stared at him.
He leaned forward, stroking his queen, drawing her along the boxed edges of the square she currently owned. "Or do you think that sitting here, across from me, sharing your thoughts freely and giving away your dreams . . . could be a true type of intimacy instead?"
"I suppose the act of-of copulation-" She swallowed, trying to push away the feelings-that strange mix of fear, anxiety, and want-his latter words provoked. "Isn"t a reflection of intimacy. Perhaps I should have stated it an intimate pursuit. But, we are not being intimate." No matter what her suddenly sweaty palms stated.
"No? I have a feeling though that there are very few people you truly speak to outside of talk of the weather and the latest on dits or even your charity work. That few people truly know you."
His smile grew lazier. "And yet, here I sit, quite sure in the fact that the Charlotte I see before me is the one who bleeds away in the deep of the night. Painted expectations dripping from her, naked and free."
"You are unbalanced."
"Perhaps. Or perhaps I"ve simply tricked you into thinking you are safe for the night, here in this game. Still safe inside your stiff boudoir made of white. All the while I subtly remove the starch, bathing the white in shadow, turning it to cream."
She stared at him, unable to move. Unable to look away from his eyes, the shadows of the queen he drew along the boxed square the only thing in her peripheral vision.
"Like those whites and dark blues you wear-the darkness never bleeding into the crisp, clean, untouchable color. Purely surrounding it or using it as accent."
She had to clear her throat to remove the block but refused to look away. "And you think this is intimacy we are exchanging? That you are pulling my secrets from me?"
"Perhaps. Or perhaps you are pulling mine from me."
"You"ve given me nothing but taunting words and seductive phrases. I hardly think right now that you are the Roman who "bleeds away in the deep of the night." "
He leaned forward. "That you even admit as much . . . But I have given you such details should you seek to unwrap and use them." He smiled. "I hope you do."
She didn"t know how to deal with the emotions he was provoking, so she motioned to the board. "It is your turn."
"So it is." He hummed a bit. "Do you enjoy working with the Orphans of Liberty?"
She looked up at him through her lashes, relieved to be on a safer subject, wary of what he might twist the conversation toward. "Yes. They are not one of my primary focuses, but I enjoy the group immensely."
"Not one of your primary focuses? You don"t think orphans should be a prime focus?"
She narrowed her eyes but thought she read his expression right. "You are being deliberately difficult. They are already supported by a generous set of benefactors. They don"t require my efforts like other groups do."
"Mmmm . . . like the London Women"s Group? Giving underprivileged women a second chance."
She moved her queen-side bishop in a jerking motion, s.n.a.t.c.hing one of his p.a.w.ns, without meeting his eyes. "Should I be flattered that you know of my interests, Mist- Roman?"
"Merely something I heard in pa.s.sing." He waved a hand above his king-side rook and pushed it along its crooked path. "And I am always looking for new interests myself. Perhaps I should donate to some of the causes you find worthwhile?"
"So that you can brag of them to your conquests? Not be called on your duplicity?"
"Duplicity, deceit, deception-such useful skills, no?"
"I hardly think so." She viciously plucked his rook.
"No?" The corner of his mouth lifted. "But you employ them so well."
"Pardon me?"
"And on yourself most of the time, mmmm?"
She clamped her lips on an automatic chilly refusal. Something within her not letting the duplicitous denial through. Panic spread sharply.
He reached over and touched her chin, thumb skimming her lower lip, releasing it from its tight grip. "But not now, no? Is there something here in this night that makes you feel the release, Charlotte? Something intimate ?"
She watched his eyes as they traced her lips, felt the pad of his thumb in their echo. Drugging something in her.
"Is there something about me that allows you to brook the thought of relief? Or have I simply provided you the means at the perfect time?"
She spoke, his thumb brus.h.i.+ng her lip with each whispered syllable. "You think much of yourself."
"Only in the way that I read your reactions. I would not play these games with someone I found uninteresting, or with someone uninterested in me."
"I don"t believe you."
"No? Is that because you don"t see your own worth? Or rather know it? For I have a feeling you see it quite frequently."
In the mirror, every day.
She tore herself away from his grasp. "And you, Roman? What is your worth? In the games you win?"
"Perhaps. Or in the people that are mine."
Something slithered through her, an insidious thread. "And you? Do you belong to them as well?"
He leaned in again, smiling, a dark, delicious smile. "Of course. For that is the risk and the quest, is it not?"
"I don"t believe you. Few men wish to belong to someone else. And you do not strike me as a man who would belong to anyone. "
"Where is your sense of adventure, Charlotte? Your desire for compet.i.tion? For winning?"
"I am playing am I not?" She shoved her piece onto an empty square. "But most of those feelings are long past. Matured."
Safely buried.
"Then we will simply need to dig them back up. Rejuvenate them. Return Charlotte Chatsworth to her vibrant glory."
She didn"t look up from the board, but his words wound through her, hooking in, provoking want. Panic and desire. For he somehow knew exactly what to say to her. Pulling her like the marionette on strings she had been in the hall hours ago. The sands of time slipping through her fingers as they played, just like the metaphorical paint dripping from her skin, baring her with each uttered word.
"Come."
He reached beneath the table, and she could hear a series of snaps. He lifted the top of the table and stood. She stared at him. At the stump of the table left. Neck and legs without a crown.
"Come with me, Charlotte." The words sang of sly promises and seductive creatures of old, almost making her squirm on her chair.
But she looked to his eyes, to the circles that had gathered beneath. Strangely, they made him look more like a fierce, sleek predator.
Was he done with the game then? Exhaustion pus.h.i.+ng to other things? Falling back to the threat of leaving her virginity on his sheets?
He balanced the tabletop on one hand, like a servant carrying a platter. He bent, and his fingers curled around hers, sneaking beneath her palm, slowly lifting it and her to standing.
"Come."
She didn"t know if she would have had the remaining presence required to extricate her own hand, so when his just as slowly descended, still wrapped around hers, softly leaving it at her side, his fingertips pulling along hers, the hoa.r.s.e words popped forth.
"Where to?"
"It draws toward morning, and like all creatures of the night, I find myself wanting a darker, softer place to hide."
He carried the board gently, balancing the pieces on top, and walked toward the room at back. The navy-and-red coverlet sang of illicit purposes.
"I promise I only have a continuance of this game in mind," he called over his shoulder. "For now." The last was lower in both volume and register. Almost as if she weren"t even required to hear it. It being more of a stated promise.
He turned the corner with the board, disappearing from view.
She approached the room at a much slower pace. Curious and apprehensive. Wondering where this night would lead. A faint flicker built within her as she stepped through the portal.
The bed was large, and it was hard to notice anything else in the room at first. She and Emily could share it with an extra person to either side. She didn"t think her own room was large enough to accommodate such a ma.s.sive piece of furniture. Dark pillows scattered the top as if hastily thrown on. She thought she saw a tucked trouser leg sticking out from under the bed where the coverlet brushed the boards.
That small peek of disarray allowed her to draw a shaky breath and continue forward.
The counterpane itself was magnificent. The scarlet-and-navy pattern wove together into a tight sculpted print, like an oriental rug shot through with gold. She had never seen such exquisite cloth. She touched it with her finger pads, running them along the surface. The fabric was silky, smooth, the gold threads making just the slightest hitch. She curled her fingers into the fabric, feeling the layers beneath. He sat upon the bed, sinking heavily into the layers before arranging the chessboard on top, situating it in its own divot of goose down.
He scooted up and reclined on his side, a charming smile about his lips. "Much more comfortable."
Decadent. Lush. Not comfortable.
She perched on the edge, determined not to be enveloped. A part of her, here in the illusory night, wanting the opposite. Just a little part.
"Come now, Charlotte. You can hardly see from that position, much less reach your pieces. It will be detrimental to your play."
"I find myself thinking this change of venue can hardly be anything but detrimental to my play. Or to me."
He raised a brow. "Not up to the challenge? Even with my most gentlemanly promise?"
She frowned and scooted up, dragging herself across the luxurious fabric half in protest, and sat with legs tucked to the side on the decadent bed, her voluminous, prim black skirts spread about her, her back ramrod straight, as her undergarments dictated. He reclined on his side, propped on one arm, s.h.i.+rt open at the collar and hitching beneath him. Creasing the covers under and around him in a depraved way.