The fight left her. “Let me go.”
He pressed closer, speaking in her ear. “I will have my revenge. The faster you realize that, the easier our marriage will be.”
She stayed quiet, silence her resistance.
“You want to leave?” he asked, the words raw and graveled.
No. I want you to want me to stay.
Why? Why must he have such an effect on her? She took a deep breath. “Yes.”
He lifted his hand from the door and took a step back, and she missed his warmth almost instantly. “Go then.”
She did not hesitate.
She fled into the hallway beyond, unable to shake the thought that something had just happened between them. Something that could not be taken back. She paused, leaning against the wall, breathing deeply as she was cloaked in the darkness and the muffled din from the casino beyond.
She wrapped her arms tightly around herself, closing her eyes against the thought—against the words they’d just shared, against the keen understanding that she’d waited eight years for a marriage that was about more than what she owned, or represented, or had been bred for, only to marry a man who saw her for nothing more than those things.
Worse, a man she had always thought would be different.
That man had never existed.
He’d never grown from the boy she’d known.
From the boy she’d loved.
She released one long breath and laughed harshly in the darkness.
Fate was cruel indeed.
“Lady Bourne?”
She started at the sound of her name—still so foreign to her—and pressed back to the wall as a very tall man materialized from the blackness. He was reed thin, with a strong, square jaw, and the expression in his eyes, a mix of sympathy and something else that she could not name, had her believing him more friend than foe.
He gave a short, barely there bow. “I am Cross. I have your winnings.”
He held out a dark pouch, and it took Penelope a moment to understand what it was—to remember that she’d come here tonight for excitement and adventure and pleasure, and she was leaving with nothing but disappointment.
She reached for it, the heavy weight of the coins within surprising her.
He laughed, low and rich. “Thirty-five pounds is quite a bit of money,” he said. “And on roulette? You’re very lucky.”
“I’m not at all lucky.” Not tonight, at least.
A beat. “Well, perhaps your luck is changing.”
Doubtful.
“Perhaps.”
There was a long silence as he considered her before he dipped his head in a little nod, and he said, “Be careful on your journey home. That’s enough blunt to make a thief’s year.” He turned away, and she transferred the pouch from one hand to the other, testing the weight of the coins inside, the sound they made as they rubbed against each other.
And then, before she could reconsider, she called after him, “Mr. Cross?”
He stopped, turning back. “My lady?”
“Do you know my husband well?” she blurted into the darkness, and, for a long moment, Penelope thought he might not reply.
And then he did. “As well as anyone knows Bourne.”
She could not help her little laugh at the words. “Better than I do, to be sure.”
He did not reply to the statement. He didn’t have to. “Is there something that you want to ask?”
There were so many things she wanted to ask. Too many things.
Who is he? What happened to the boy she once knew? What made him so distant? Why wouldn’t he give an inch to this marriage?
She could not ask any of them. “No.”
He waited for a long moment for her to change her mind. When she didn’t, he said, “You are exactly what I expected.”
“What does that mean?”
“Only that the woman who sets Bourne so completely on edge must be something remarkable indeed.”
“I don’t set him on edge. He doesn’t think of me beyond what I can do in service to his higher goals.” She regretted the words instantly. Regretted their peevishness.
One of Cross’s brows shot up. “I assure you, my lady, that is not at all the case.”
If only it were true.
Of course, it wasn’t.
“It seems you do not know him very well after all.”
He seemed to understand that she was not interested in arguing the point. Instead, he changed the subject. “Where is he?”
She shook her head. “I don’t know. I left him.”
His teeth flashed white in the darkness. “I’m sure he adored that.”
He’d forced her away. “I don’t entirely care how he felt about it.”
He laughed, then, the sound loud and friendly. “You’re perfect.”
She didn’t feel perfect. She felt like a singular idiot. “I beg your pardon?”
“In all the years that I’ve known Bourne, I’ve never known a woman to affect him the way you do. I’ve never seen him resist someone the way he does you.”
“It’s not resistance. It’s disinterest.”
One ginger brow rose. “Lady Bourne, it is most definitely not disinterest.”