“I have no other talent,” he said.
This got her attention, and she found herself dismayed by the truth that shone in his dark brown eyes. “You won,” she whispered, and he nodded with a smile. “How much?”
“Just thirty pounds so far,” he said, looking slightly bashful, “at vingt-et-un—my game of choice.”
Rebecca just sat there, stunned. “You devil,” she finally exclaimed. “You let me win!”
“Guilty,” he confessed as his smile broadened to a grin.
“I have a sudden urge to throttle you, Daniel,” she said, unsure of whether to laugh or cry. She frowned instead and leveled him with her most serious stare. “Were there women at this . . . venue you visited?”
“Yes, Becky, there were.”
“Did you speak with any of them?”
“I did.”
That surprised her. She hadn’t expected him to be quite so candid. “And?”
To his credit, he didn’t feign ignorance or attempt to insult her intelligence by pretending not to know what she was asking. “I saw one of my former mistresses there,” he admitted, and Rebecca felt a sudden urge to be ill. “She wanted to know if I would like to invite her back into my bed, but I told her that I have no intention of slipping back into that way of life—that I’m married now and plan on remaining faithful to my wife.”
Rebecca didn’t move, because she feared that if she did, she might slip from the sofa and land on the Persian carpet. He’d completely disarmed her with his honesty, and she adored him for it. Still, she could not allow him to think he’d gotten away unscathed, so she kept quite still and said, “I understand your reasoning, Daniel, and I forgive you, but you should know that if you ever do something like this again behind my back, I will walk out the front door of this house and disappear from your life forever. Do you understand?”
A muscle twitched at his jaw as he nodded. “In that case, there’s something else you ought to know.”
The strain in his voice made her wary. “What is it?” she asked.
“Starkly approached me last night to warn me about Grover—says he’s contemplating revenge.”
“What?” She swallowed hard, while her heart slammed against her chest. The duke was not the honorable sort. If he wanted Daniel gone, he’d probably pay some thugs to put a bullet in his back and toss him in the Thames. She shuddered.
“Don’t be too alarmed,” Daniel told her. “For all I know this could be a bunch of nonsense concocted by Starkly with the sole purpose of putting me on edge. But it doesn’t hurt for us to keep our guard up and to stick to more populated areas whenever we venture out.”
“Well . . . thank you for telling me,” Rebecca said, still stunned by this bit of information. She met his gaze. “Regardless of our reasons for getting married, I want us to work as a team, Daniel. I have no other friends, in case you weren’t aware, and since you and I have to live together, I just want us to be able to trust each other. Our marriage will be unbearable otherwise.”
“I agree,” he said, looking sheepish and far too adorable for someone who’d just been caught with his hand in the proverbial cookie jar.
“I’m so glad you think so,” Rebecca said, smiling brightly, “since you’ll take no issue with me joining you this evening then.”
“I beg your pardon?” Daniel asked, eyes widening with disbelief.
“Tonight when you visit that gambling hell of yours, I have every intention of coming with you.”
“You can’t be serious.” Daniel shook his head as if to clear it. “Of course you are. You’re always looking for a bit of adventure, aren’t you?”
Rebecca smiled. “It keeps life interesting, don’t you think?”
“I think it’s madness if you must know,” he said. “A place like that is completely unfit for a lady such as yourself—for my wife, to be precise. And that’s without considering the potential threat from Grover.”
“He won’t try to do anything to either of us in public. If anything, I’d be more afraid of staying home alone than I would be of joining you at a gambling hell. Besides, if the place is all right for one of your mistresses, then it’s all right for me too,” Rebecca said, knowing that she was making a ridiculous point, but if Daniel was going to be in the room with such women, then so would she, no matter what Grover might be plotting.
“Former mistress,” he ground out, looking not the least bit amused, “and I hope you’re not attempting to compare yourself to her, Becky.”
“No,” Rebecca said, “but I would like to see where you spend your evenings at least once.” What she hoped was that in doing so she’d prevent herself from sitting at home and imagining the worst, which, for starters, would include Daniel playing cards with a courtesan on his lap. What she might envision him doing with the imaginary woman once he’d finished gambling was not something she wished to dwell on.
“You don’t trust me,” he said. It wasn’t a question, just a statement of fact.
She tilted her head and pondered that. He’d told her everything when she’d confronted him, and she believed he’d been truthful. She also believed that he wished to keep his word and remain faithful to her, but would he be strong enough to resist temptation? If Lady Vernon could so easily kiss him in a deserted hallway, then what might not happen after a few drinks when he was surrounded with loose women? It wasn’t a concern she dared to share with him for fear that he might see the contents of her heart. “Of course I do,” she said, “but as I’ve said before, I don’t want us to have any more secrets.”
“And with everything that I’ve just told you, there’s hardly anything secret about it anymore.”
“Still, I think that seeing the place for myself would give me some peace of mind.”
“And I think you’re just looking for an excuse to go on another adventure, unless of course your real concern is for the courtesans that are bound to be present.” He stared back at her, his eyes intense, as if searching for something. “You’re not jealous, are you?”
“Jealous?” Rebecca squeaked. “Why on earth would you think I might be jealous? If what you say is true, and I believe it is, then I’ve no cause for concern, have I?”
He frowned, his eyes not straying from hers for an instant. She started feeling queasy inside, and her hands began to tremble. He couldn’t possibly know, could he?
“No,” he said. “But if that ever changes, then you’ll be the first to know. In fact, from this moment forth, I will be completely honest with you.” And then he smiled, erasing all signs of seriousness, while Rebecca was left with a very sick feeling in her heart. “I’ll allow you to accompany me this evening if that’s what you want. I know that you crave the occasional exploit, and frankly I’d rather you do so in my company than on your own—as I expect you will if I don’t give my consent.”
Still recovering from his previous statement, Rebecca forced a smile. “You know me well already.”
A knock sounded at the door, and Daniel called for whoever it was to enter.
“A letter, sir,” Hawkins announced, stepping forward and presenting the missive to Daniel on a silver tray.
“Thank you, Hawkins,” Daniel said as the valet left, the door closing quietly behind him.
Rebecca watched as Daniel tore open the seal on the back and unfolded the paper. “It’s from Roxberry,” he said. Rebecca just looked at him blankly. She’d no idea who Roxberry might be. “He writes that the person who shot you has been apprehended and that he will happily provide us with more information on the matter, but that under the circumstances, it would be best if he did so in person.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Rebecca asked, a little confused by the vagueness of the letter.
“I suppose he wants to avoid the chance of the letter falling into someone else’s hands and the information becoming public,” Daniel mused, looking vastly intrigued. “There is a postscript stating that the lady who was shot—that would be you—was not the target.”
“That certainly is reassuring,” Rebecca said.
“I couldn’t agree more,” Daniel said. “I wonder who the real target was then.”
“You’ll have to speak with Roxberry to find out. Is his estate far from here?”
“It’s about an hour’s drive north of Moxley,” Daniel said as he set the letter aside and looked at Rebecca. “It will have to wait for now.”
“Tell me, what plans do you have for today?” Rebecca asked. Following their discussion and all the revelations, she was hoping they might be able to spend the day together.
“I have to meet with my brother-in-law at two,” he said, looking rather serious. “I know gambling isn’t the right choice in the long run, so I’m hoping that he might be willing to advise me on how to invest some of the money I’ve set aside. He’s been very successful himself.”
“I think that’s a splendid idea, Daniel,” Rebecca told him. She was genuinely pleased that he was making an effort to do the right thing and that he was wise enough to seek the advice of someone with more experience.
“Perhaps once I’m done we could go to Gunther’s together. It will be good for us to get out of the house, I think, and show ourselves to the ton—let them know we’re not cowering away and that we’re happy with the choice we’ve made. Besides, I bet you’ve never had an ice before, in which case it really is a treat not to be missed.”
Rebecca hadn’t and immediately looked forward to spending the day with her husband, laughing and joking as they usually did in each other’s company. Having serious discussions like this was something she hoped they might avoid in the future. Honesty and loyalty would certainly go a long way toward achieving that, and while a part of her still warned against trusting him completely, she knew she had to at least try. The last thing she wanted was to constantly worry about what he might be doing and who he might be with, but she could not allow him to know how deep this concern ran without him discovering that she was hopelessly in love with him, a man who’d given her no reason to believe that he would ever reciprocate the feeling. It was a heartbreaking acknowledgement, really, but when she’d agreed to marry Daniel, she’d known what she was getting herself into and that love wasn’t part of the bargain. She hadn’t been in love with him either back then, so it wasn’t something she’d worried too much about, and desperate to avoid marrying Grover, she’d accepted the condition. It would be unfair of her to voice her affection for him now and make him responsible for her heart, when this was likely the very last thing that he wanted.
So she forced her thoughts on the matter back to the furthest recesses of her mind and smiled at him enthusiastically. “I’m looking forward to it already,” she said. “But first, I do believe we ought to have some breakfast.”